The War on Fetterman Is Very Soviet

John Fetterman is the left’s new bête noire.

Once a darling of the left, mostly because he was running against Dr. Oz for the US Senate, Fetterman has alienated his former allies by not hewing to the party line. 

There’s nothing unusual about that in itself. To be fair, Republicans do the same thing to their apostates, even when we know (or should know) that candidates more in line with our ideological preferences would get crushed in their election bids. 

That is the way of politics. 

What generally isn’t is completely reversing course on basic matters of fact. Fetterman was severely (and somewhat temporarily) disabled by a stroke that left him barely able to speak at the time and bouts of severe depression that pretty clearly disabled him for months. Yet during the period he was most disabled, every Democrat, Pravda Media outlet, and NeverTrumper loudly denied that Fetterman was impaired at all. 

Now that he has mostly recovered, these same people are trashing him relentlessly, not for his apostasy, but as a deeply troubled man who is incapable of emotional continence and even rational thought. As his health improved, his approval declined, and as his approval declined, the leftists’ evaluation of his mental acuity and mental health took a dive. 

The AP went all of Biden’s presidency without ever printing a headline saying his behavior behind the scenes “raised alarms.” pic.twitter.com/8Eym783st8

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) May 8, 2025

John wrote about New York Magazine’s vicious hit piece on Senator Fetterman, which kicked off a series of stories (a Narrative™) about how the senator is no longer fit to serve. For a summary of the controversy, his piece is a good place to start. 

A couple of things are striking to me about this controversy. The first is, of course, how the Democrats keep looking for the perfect mindless politician to act as front men for the technocrats who believe they should be the ultimate arbiters of all policy. It is as if the best qualification for a high-level politician is intellectual vacuity. 

The role of the politician is to provide a gloss of democratic legitimacy to policies chosen by people with no accountability at all. Think of how committed the left was to Joe Biden, whose declining mental capacities were evident as far back as 2019. By now, it is widely acknowledged that he was a puppet president, although the left won’t quite admit it in those terms. His was the autopen presidency, and the Democrats and media loved that. 

They abandoned Biden when it became clear he couldn’t win, but managed to replace him with somebody nearly as incapable of thought. Harris was not mentally deranged, merely stupid, and they hoped to install her as Biden’s successor because she was nearly as manipulable as he. 

Fetterman, they thought, would fit that mold. He had a reputation as an apostate, but his seemingly permanent mental incapacity would have been perfect. He, too, would be a puppet. 

Fetterman’s health problems weren’t a problem to Dems and the media when they could use him as a prop next to the other guy whose health problems they were covering up. pic.twitter.com/mHGhXcAAJU

— Kate Hyde (@KateHydeNY) May 2, 2025

But he is not a puppet, so every criticism that Republicans laid at his feet is now being parroted by the left. As it became clear that Fetterman still had a brain and was capable of independent thought, the campaign to impugn his abilities ratcheted up. 

What makes this Soviet is the tactic–one used against Trump as well–to define deviation from the approved ideology as mental illness and incapacity. Actual incapacity, at least in Democrat politicians, is a positive. Democrats want their Andropov or Chernenko–mentally broken men who are propped up as the technocrats rule–and classify any deviant who bucks the system as insane. 

The only time as a reporter I saw Fetterman not himself, not just regarding his health, was when he was recovering and other people were handling his messaging. During that time, I was the most critical of Fetterman’s candidacy. However, nearly all of that criticism was due to a… https://t.co/3xIvrDqow1

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) May 8, 2025

The only time as a reporter I saw Fetterman not himself, not just regarding his health, was when he was recovering and other people were handling his messaging. During that time, I was the most critical of Fetterman’s candidacy. However, nearly all of that criticism was due to a stunning lack of transparency from his staff.

In the Soviet Union, the regime was actually able to put dissenters in mental institutions. In the United States, it is more difficult. 

What the regime CAN do is slander any deviation from leftist orthodoxy as disqualifying. If they can’t force compliance, they can try to drum people out of office. 

It’s a tactic used by communists for over a century. And that is what we are seeing here.