Is John Fetterman the Smartest Politician in America?
Or is he going to be a one-term U.S. Senator?
Hey Folks,
The other day Philadelphia magazine published a profile I wrote for their new issue about never-not-fascinating, always-in-the news Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.
The “peg” for the story (as we say in the journalism biz) was the stridently pro-Israel position Fetterman has taken since October 7th — a position that’s largely outraged the progressives who’ve long been Fetterman’s political base. How outraged? Well, several have openly said on social media they hope Fetterman — who had a stroke while running for the Senate in 2022 — suffers another one. And Fetterman himself told me about a DM he received that urged him to “do a Budd Dwyer in front of your kids.” (Dwyer was the embattled Pennsylvania state treasurer who, during a 1986 news conference, shot himself in the head.)
“Think about that,” Fetterman told me, with a dark laugh. “That someone woke up in the morning and said, let’s slide into someone’s DMs [and tell him] to blow your brains out in front of your kids.”
But the controversy was only one reason I wanted to do the story. The other was Fetterman himself. Like a lot of people, I first became aware of him about 15 years ago when he was mayor of Braddock, Pa., the small, struggling, predominantly Black community outside Pittsburgh. His tale was compelling: bald, 6-foot-8-inch Harvard grad who liked to wear hoodies tries to revive a town decimated by deindustrialization – just because it seemed like the right thing to do. (The gig paid $150 per month.)
I’ve followed Fetterman ever since, watching as he became a hero of the left (thanks to his calls for a higher minimum wage, LGBTQ rights, and legal weed). As he got elected lieutenant governor. As he won a Senate seat (despite the harsh impact of his stroke). And finally, just over a year ago, as he checked himself into the hospital, suffering from major depression.
What intrigues me most about Fetterman is that everything about his political career has been upside down and inside out. All the things that conventional political wisdom say should have hurt him — going far left on issues, suffering a stroke, openly acknowledging his depression, wearing shorts on the floor of the Senate, now pissing off his base by tacking right — have only seemed to make Fetterman more popular. At least for now.
What does this tell us about the state of politics? Probably many things, but surely one of them is about our hunger for authenticity in politicians. Fetterman not only says what he thinks, but he’s been willing to put his own brokenness very much on display. Is that a recipe for lasting success? We’ll see.
I hope you can take a few minutes to read the full story. Agree with him or not, Fetterman’s a fairly entertaining guy — and he certainly doesn’t hold back.
A quick update on my new book! We’re about five weeks away from the release Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation, and I’m really gratified by the early praise the book is getting. It’s earned rave reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Shelf Awareness, and last week the Next Big Idea Club selected it as a must-read title for June.
In the coming weeks I’ll be announcing some exciting events around the book’s publication. In the meantime, I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering it.