Co-operation with Donald Trump is so unthinkable for most Democrats that the one senator who has extended an olive branch has been told “you’re dead to us” by the left.
John Fetterman, who was elected in Pennsylvania in 2022, was already being ostracised for his robust support of Israel but his embrace of some of Trump’s disputed nominees and call for President Biden to pardon his successor has deepened hostility.
The 55-year-old former small-town mayor has been labelled the “new version of Joe Manchin”, referring to the retiring centrist senator from West Virginia who was a thorn in Biden’s side and eventually quit the Democrats to sit as an independent.
But Fetterman, who has struggled against the effects of a stroke that impacted his speech and ability to comprehend dialogue, is a lot harder to pigeonhole than Manchin.
He has called Trump’s hush money prosecution “bullshit” and criticised Kamala Harris for calling the president-elect “fascist”, but also stood up for transgender rights, including allowing teenagers to choose hormone treatment or gender surgery.
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“This is a deeply personal kind of conversation between doctors and between their parents and the child themselves,” he told Politico in November. “Where we’re weaponising that, that’s part of what’s gross in our American politics right now. It punishes the people that have these kinds of internal conflicts, or they happen to feel that way and how they identify.”
Fetterman won his Senate seat partly because he was viewed as authentic, both in explaining his populist version of blue-collar liberalism and having deep Pennsylvania roots, unlike the Republican he beat, Trump’s friend Mehmet Oz. The TV personality and former heart surgeon known as Dr Oz has been put forward by Trump as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. True to his rejection of political point-scoring, Fetterman said he could imagine supporting Oz in the Senate confirmation vote.
“I’m going to be very, very clear: if Dr Oz agrees to protect and preserve Medicaid and Medicare, I’m absolutely going to vote for the dude,” he told CNN. “That’s the most important thing for me. Our politics are obviously different, and we do have a history, but I don’t have any bitterness. I don’t hold anything against him. As long as he’s willing to protect and preserve Medicaid and Medicare, I’m voting for the dude.”
It encapsulates the willingness to build bridges that is lacking elsewhere in the Democratic Party.
As “The Resistance” prepares to battle all things Trump for the next four years, Fetterman accepts that voters installed the president-elect and gave him a 53-47 majority in the Senate, where a simple majority is all that is required to pass most measures, including confirming top jobs.
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He has always stood out at 6ft 8in tall and became the first Democratic senator to join Trump’s Truth Social network to reach out to its largely Maga (Make America Great Again) base. He also joined Bluesky, the alternative to Elon Musk’s X to which many Democrats have migrated.
Fetterman had already been branded a “traitor” by some on the left for his support of Israel’s war in Gaza, even as criticism mounted over the rising civilian death toll.
He doubled down by endorsing Trump’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations, the staunchly pro-Israel Elise Stefanik, posing for a photo together and posting: “Always was a hard YES for Elise Stefanik but it was a pleasure to have a conversation. I support defunding UNRWA [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees] for its documented Hamas infiltration and fully look forward to her holding the UN accountable for its endemic antisemitism and blatant anti-Israel views.”
In his first Truth Social post, Fetterman went further than any other senior Democrat in declaring that Trump should be pardoned for his 34 felony convictions in New York, a verdict the president-elect is appealing against. “The Trump hush money and Hunter Biden cases were both bullshit, and pardons are appropriate,” Fetterman wrote. “Weaponising the judiciary for blatant, partisan gain diminishes the collective faith in our institutions and sows further division.”
When Trump reposted this, Andrew Wortman, author of the left-wing America Rises newsletter, wrote on X that this was “an immeasurably dangerous and unconscionably irresponsible betrayal, John Fetterman. You’re dead to us, senator.”
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Fetterman has taken many arrows from his own side for reaching out to Maga but has also stayed true to core Democrat positions, defending gay and abortion rights. “Picking on trans or gay kids is just un-American,” he said. “If you think that makes you tough or more of a man, then that’s just pathetic.”
His brand of liberal populism with a heart has stirred discussion of whether he could become the next “big tent” hope for the Democrats nationally, but he probably has too many enemies in the party to become its presidential candidate.
In reaching out to Maga, he is mainly reflecting the more open-minded politics that any Democrat needs to win in Pennsylvania. The state was seen as the linchpin of Trump’s victory and rejected its other Democratic senator, Bob Casey, suggesting the party needed a new approach.
“I just happen to have reasonable views and I don’t know why that’s controversial,” Fetterman told The New York Times. The question is whether others will follow or he will remain a lonely outlier.