WASHINGTON – If there’s one thing Sen. John Fetterman wants you to know about him, it’s that he’s the same man he was on the campaign trail.
THE junior Democratic senator from Pennsylvania still shows up to work every day in a Carhartt hoodie and gym shorts, enlivens the conversation with profanity and takes shots at the “losers” and “sleazeballs” he feels the need to be called out on – and he will not mince words when it comes to Israel.
“I said I dress like a bastard, I dress like a bastard,” he said. “I said I was going to stand with Israel, I stood with Israel. I said I would be a reliable Democratic vote, and I still am a reliable Democratic vote.
That’s not how many people on the left are seeing it these days.
In the months since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, Fetterman has become one of his party’s strongest supporters of Israel.
He stands on an island apart from his Democratic peers, most of whom have tried to strike a balance between supporting Israel’s self-defense interests and condemning the carnage wrought by Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion. Gaza Strip, which killed more than 34,500 people. people and created dire humanitarian conditions for those who remain. He has also become a vocal critic of the pro-Palestinian protests that have erupted in response on college campuses across the country.
Fetterman’s stance came as a shock to progressives who championed him during his 2022 campaign, when he became the only Democrat to change seats in the Upper House. The campaign attracted legions of left-wing admirers who saw him as a populist rising star, along the lines of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — people who now refer to him as “treason,” A “seesaw” and one “jagoff.”
In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY last week, Fetterman argued that those assumptions were wrong from the start and that he showed his “unwavering” support for Israel well before his election.
“I’m not a progressive,” he said. “I’ve been saying this for years. I just don’t identify with that label. But I’m still a Democrat and someone you can count on.”
Former supporters, frustrated by his public rejection of the label, point fingers at social media posts which suggests the opposite.
And Fetterman — still four years removed from another Senate campaign — will put his message to the test this fall as an on-the-ground supporter of President Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, and well beyond as well.
Biden has also faced backlash from the left over his support for Israel. To the delight of Donald Trump, thousands of Democratic voters held “no-strings-attached” protest votes in presidential primaries across the country, hoping to push the president to end military aid American to…
