What Is Behind John Fetterman's Rightward Pivot?
On Thursday, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman became the first Senate Democrat to meet with Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s problematic pick to lead the Department of Defense. Oddly, Fetterman hasn’t ruled out supporting Hegseth, whose own mother once wrote him an angry email calling him an abuser of women. (She now says she doesn’t hold the same view of her son.)
“He could theoretically become the head of the Defense Department,” Fetterman told Politico in explaining his logic. “I've discovered in my time in D.C. that that’s important. And, ‘Are you having a conversation with someone?’ I don’t know why that’s shocking.”
Fetterman also said he’s aware of “some” allegations against Hegseth. Those include, but are not limited to, Hegseth allegedly raping a woman in 2017—Hegseth said the sex was consensual—and supposedly drinking on the job. But that hasn’t stopped the Pennsylvania senator from being open to joining Republicans in confirming the Fox News host.
Fetterman said he’s not sure why it’d be “controversial” to meet with Hegseth—and even suggested the two might find common ground on some issues. And on its own, meeting with the likely next defense secretary may not be a strange thing. But that’s not the only eyebrow-raising action Fetterman has taken recently.
On Wednesday, Fetterman apparently became the first Democratic senator to join Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform. And in his debut post, he made the surprising call to pardon Trump in his New York hush money case.
Fetterman also said he was a “hard YES” on confirming Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York as the next ambassador to the United Nations.
Stefanik isn’t the first Trump Cabinet pick that Fetterman has voiced his support for. In November, he said he would vote to confirm Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as the next secretary of state.
Once a self-described progressive, Fetterman has pivoted to the right since winning his 2022 Senate election. But backing Trump’s Cabinet picks isn’t the first time the senator has found himself on the outs with the progressive movement. He’s one of many Democrats to make stringently pro-Israel statements during its ongoing war in Gaza. In that, he found allies in the Democratic Party, such as New York Rep. Ritchie Torres.
However, Fetterman is making the case that he hasn’t abandoned progressivism—but that the movement dumped him.
“I didn’t leave the label, it left me on that,” Fetterman said in a June interview with comedian Bill Maher.
But a review of his history with the label makes his change appear more cynical in nature. After all, the senator happily embraced the label for years and courted the endorsement of independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, when Fetterman successfully ran to be Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor. Now, though, Fetterman seems more keen to taunt progressivism than to embrace it.
It’s a convenient scapegoat for Fetterman to blame the left for his shift to the right. It keeps his name in the limelight while making him seem to be some sort of brave truth-teller who isn’t afraid to stand up to his own party.
However, he might find it hard to have it both ways, with both parties, especially during a time when center-left and establishment Democrats are coming under fire for frequently losing elections and major policy fights.
At least for now, Fetterman hasn’t made clear what his end goal is in fighting his own party’s interests. But in the short-term, he is apparently trying to fill the void of the non-Republican rabble-rouser now that independent Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are leaving.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
