I still cannot believe what I watched last night in the Pennsylvania Senate debate. And I still cannot believe the professional media class — from The View to the Atlantic, to the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times — is taking the position they are. Their line is that the audience is wrong — probably immoral — for thinking anything is amiss with John Fetterman. They should be outraged at the Fetterman campaign and the Pennsylvania Democratic Party for keeping this man as the candidate. Mehmet Oz was not a skilled debater and would have been highly vulnerable to Conor Lamb or any other capable elected Democrat in the state.
All the nonsense people are putting out about how being a senator is an easy job and you just have to vote “yes” or “no” is disgusting. It’s untrue. And it further dehumanizes John Fetterman. If what is meant by that is, “I’ll never vote for a Republican because I deeply oppose all Republican values,” that’s fine. That’s why it’s such a sin for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party to have denied Pennsylvania Democrats a competent nominee when they had months to arrange another one. The upshot is, “For a Senate majority, I’m willing to vote for a man even if the consequence is to harm his post-stroke care further.”
The media sphere is suddenly brimming with accusations of “ableism” and gobbledygook about how we have to admire Fetterman’s absolute bravery, but also, Republicans must refrain from attacking him like a typical candidate. In other words, he’s doubly great when I support him but doubly vulnerable and needs special treatment when you attack him.
All the talk about Fetterman being the candidate to win over the white working class is coming to an end. Or at least it should. In my experience, working-class people sincerely appreciate the difference between co-workers who are merely hurt, working valiantly through pain, and those who are seriously injured and have become a liability to themselves or others. It’s only members of the clerical class who view jobs as semi-hereditary entitlements regardless of one’s ability to perform them.
Fetterman’s condition, and the way that his campaign and the media guarded against any serious inquiry into it, will have a run-on effect. The taboo against believing your own eyes and ears was shattered last night. And that taboo was guarding Joe Biden.