Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) panned Democrats who are upping their criticisms of President Biden ahead of the November election, saying they might as well don a “MAGA hat.”
Fetterman noted during an interview an uptick in Democrats who have become more critical of Biden lately, and said it’s only helping former President Trump.
Democracy! No longer allowed to question or criticize our politicians.
That’s a dishonest way to look at what he said. An honest one would be that he has just as much right to criticize Democrats offering aid to Trump as the Democrats offering aid to Trump have a right to criticize Biden.
Biden: [Does things]
Anti-Biden Democrats: [He shouldn’t be doing that.]
Fetterman: [They shouldn’t be doing that.]
You: [Fetterman is anti-democracy and pro-censorship.]This is just pure clownishness.
Context is key, and you’ve broken down the situation to the point of absurdity.
It’s news when the democrats say there’s no appropriate time to critique democrats
It should be news when someone calls himself progressive for years and as soon as he gets to congress he starts ranting about how much it pisses him off everyone thinks he’s progressive.
Asshole pulled a Sinema and the most annoying part is everyone defending him because he wears a hoodie.
I hope it’s more due to the fact that he had a stroke rather than he’s doing it intentionally. Either way he has had a complete shift in personality and its disappointing to no end that he’s not who he was when elected.
I’m not worried about Biden’s age mostly because I think this comes from the racist fear that Kamala Harris isn’t capable of running this country.
Yeah, I’ve known a couple family members who had a stroke and became better people.
Sometimes it works the other way.
Personality changes arent a rare after effect, it’s pretty common.
I think we’re worried about biden’s age less because we’re worried he’ll die in office and more because we’re worried he won’t and will keep running the country as his mind deteriorates beyond the point he should be running a bingo game.
I’m far more confident of Biden surrounding himself with capable stewards, than Trump. So even if the worst happens and he stays alive but loses it like Reagan, he will at least have intelligent, relatively progressive people behind the scenes making the actual decisions.
With sundowning narcissist Trump at the wheel? Buckle the fuck in, because it’s going to be a wild ride. I wouldn’t worry about having to vote at the federal level again, so at least it’ll help with that decision.
I really wish I could joke about this, but if Trump becomes president again, things are going to get very very dark.
For sure, I’m in no way advocating voting for trump I just wish the Democratic Party had ran someone who was even “just ok” instead of just barely better than the serial rapist
Honestly, I would not at all be shocked if Biden resigns the day after inauguration and Harris takes over. I’ve seen several recent articles that seem to indicate she’s WAY more in tune with the concerns of the (sane portion of the) electorate, and is actively trying to step up in many areas where Biden and his campaign are dropping the ball. We’ll see what happens, I guess.
And then she’ll be the incumbent we can’t primary in '28.
Either way he has had a complete shift in personality and its disappointing to no end that he’s not who he was when elected.
Gabbard didn’t have a shift, she was always shitty and people just didn’t notice. Her whole political background is socially conservative politics and she increased her profile during Obama’s term attacking him from the right on Fox News. Some people got infatuated by her quitting the DNC for Bernie, but that wasn’t because she was a progressive.
This guy turned heel pretty quickly.
Fuck you, Fetterman.
What a fucking disappointment this guy is turning out to be compared to all the love he got on his campaign. Not that I’d prefer Oz by any means, but it’s still pretty crushing.
I’m increasingly sure that the rising tide of never-Biden-ers is going to send Trump back into the White House. People need to be pragmatic and strategic about their voting and encourage others to do the same. So I understand WHY he felt a need to say stupid shit like this.
But if you’re not allowed to criticize Biden without being banished to Siberia, then he’s actually insufficiently different from Trump.
I’d bet Biden would not agree with Fetterman’s message. He’s not a whiny little thin-skinned gremlin the way Trump is. Based on his political career, he can even update platforms and change policy based on that feedback. So yeah, lay down the criticism to him re: Israel, he deserves it, and enough voices might actually change the foreign policy here. Do not tell the critics their votes aren’t welcome. Their votes are still needed. And hopefully they’re smart enough to know that NOT voting for Biden will create even worse outcomes, even while they continue clearly and loudly speaking up.
I’ve said this before and got downvoted but I’ll say it again. I will not tell a Muslim person or a Palestinian that they should hold their nose and vote for Biden. If the guy in charge is actively supporting a genocide and is providing the weapons that are killing your family, friend’s family, or just someone with your same religious beliefs, I don’t think we have the right to tell them they are wrong to abstain from voting for the pro genocide of their people guy. If a president was actively supporting the Nazis in killing my people, I would not have voted for that president.
It is the candidates responsibility to listen to his constituents. Not be finger wagged into voting them.
I agree that we shouldn’t shame someone in that situation.
But the counterfactual still exists – if Biden loses, that means Trump wins. And under Trump, things will be far worse. If we’re calling Biden genocidal for taking a cynical and cowardly approach to the conflict, then I am not even sure what word can possibly be extreme enough to describe the guy who actively wants all Muslims and Arabs dead.
I fundamentally disagree with the view that your vote is some signal of deep personal convictions. Voting should always be strategic. The more strategic, the better. That’s also why how you vote in the presidential election as a resident of California can be VERY different from how you vote as a resident of Georgia. I’d love to see a significant number of people in places like New York and Colorado voting third party in protest – because it’s not going to be enough to influence outcomes in that race, but may have a real and positive effect on future politics.
I just want everyone to think very, very carefully about what the counterfactuals are. In all things.
Exactly right. A vote is a chess move, not a manifesto.
Almost no real voters view voting as a chess move. Emotion matters. People can yell at what are essentially political junkies all they want on this message board, but it’s not going to influence all those marginal voters with other stuff going on, and they’re at risk if there are big emotional issues going on (like a genocidal war). You don’t solve that problem by talking about greater evils and strategic voting.
Almost all voters strategically choose to vote for a candidate they don’t actually like.
Hey, I’m gonna be honest: his enormous about-face of political ideology (“I no longer identify as a progressive”, when, you know, him being a progressive before was a big part of why he got elected) and obvious personality changes make me extremely suspicious that his stroke permanently affected his brain in some pretty serious ways.
That’s not a derogatory comment. That’s just an observation, and strokes can absolutely have that effect on someone.
Based Fetterman.
