The bounds of ideology
John Fetterman says he isn’t a progressive.
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Saturday 16 December 2023
· 21 feedback
Memeorandum refers me to NYT columnist Michelle Goldberg’s “What Drives Former Progressives to the Proper?” and Scorching Air’s John Sexton’s “Progressives fear that so many former comrades are drifting to the best,” each of which provide competing explanations for a phenomenon that I extremely doubt exists exterior of a handful of well-known individuals.*
However these items framed my studying of NBC’s report, “‘I am not a progressive’: Fetterman breaks with the left and reveals a maverick facet.”
Late. John Fetterman, D-Pa., is breaking with progressives on hot-button points together with his fervent assist for Israel and urging Democrats to have interaction in harder immigration legal guidelines, disappointing some on the left as he reveals an impartial streak.
He additionally consistently berates Democrats for not pushing Sen. Bob Menendez out of workplace after he was indicted on federal expenses of taking bribes and appearing as a overseas agent for Egypt, which the New Jersey Democrat denies.
Within the 2022 marketing campaign, Fetterman’s ties to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., prompted GOP opponent Mehmet Ozto inform voters he can be a mere “sidekick” for the Democratic socialist. However Fetterman’s latest positions level to an unorthodox model of blue-collar liberalism, with a contact of outsider populism, in a purple state anticipated to be hotly contested once more within the 2024 election.
In an interview, the first-term Pennsylvania Democrat mentioned his critics should not be stunned.
“I am not a progressive,” Fetterman informed NBC Information. “I simply assume I am a Democrat who’s very dedicated to elections and stuff. However with Israel, I wish to be on the best facet of it. And immigration is one thing close to and pricey to my coronary heart, and I believe that we additionally want to deal with it successfully.”
Fetterman insisted he may be pro-immigration whereas additionally favoring insurance policies that restrict the move of migration to manageable ranges, disagreeing with progressives who oppose new limits on asylum and slamming among the concepts within the talks as merciless.
“It is a cheap dialog – till somebody can say there’s an evidence for what we are able to do when 270,000 persons are encountered on the border, after all not together with these we do not find out about,” he mentioned. “To place that for reference, that is basically the scale of Pittsburgh, the second largest metropolis in Pennsylvania.”
The senator added that whereas it’s “not ultimate to have this dialog” about asylum and parole coverage within the context of an help bundle for Israel and Ukraine, “it is nonetheless one which we needs to be having,” on condition that Republicans need to an important situation to advance the supplementary invoice.
“Progressives higher do it as a result of we won’t depart Israel — we won’t promote them out and we won’t promote out Ukraine and we now have to ship on this,” Fetterman mentioned. “I simply actually wish to get an settlement to offer this essential help.”
[…]
“Folks appreciated Fetterman due to his populist outsiderness and empathy for all types of individuals,” mentioned Waleed Shahid, a progressive organizer who has rallied criticism of U.S. assist for Israel because the battle escalates. “Nevertheless, his excessive jingoistic assist for this warfare has led many individuals to really feel that he has a hierarchy of human worth the place Israeli lives are merely extra necessary to him than Palestinian lives.”
Some Republicans are shocked — in a great way.
“For a lot of Republicans, it has been a pleasing shock,” mentioned Christopher Nicholas, a longtime GOP strategist based mostly in Pennsylvania, referring to Fetterman’s stance on Israel, border coverage and Menendez. “Here is a beginner taking some robust positions. … I simply see somebody saying, ‘Effectively, that is what I believe and I say what I believe.'”
Nicholas mentioned he’s significantly struck by the truth that Fetterman is upfront in refusing to let go of Menendez.
“I understand how clubby the Senate is, having labored for Arlen Specter for 18 years. So I perceive,” Nicholas mentioned. “However I discover it puzzling that you have not had a number of different Democratic members of the Senate say that. Possibly it is as a result of he is a freshman and he hasn’t been utterly instilled in ‘Right here within the Senate, we do issues in another way.’ – the mindset.”
Fetterman’s chief of employees Adam Jentleson mentioned the senator has “at all times held” the political beliefs he espouses at present, although Republicans wished to color him as a socialist in 2022 and “some individuals on the left are pretending” he has since modified his religion.
“He is simply constant,” Jentleson mentioned. “He spent the entire marketing campaign telling individuals he wasn’t a direct leftist.”
Fetterman, like most conventional** individuals, is solely not an ideologue. Though I discover him quirky and annoying, he looks like a good man who grew up prosperous however developed a powerful attachment to the working class. He has all kinds of concepts concerning the world, formed by his experiences, however they don’t type a coherent worldview that may be simply felt.
He sees Israel as the best facet within the present battle and subsequently helps them. He sees Menendez (just like the expelled George Santos) as unfit to serve in Congress, interval. And he is combative sufficient to not fear an excessive amount of about what his colleagues consider him.
To the extent that persons are transferring proper greater than left—and once more, I am undecided there’s a lot empirical proof for that—I believe that is a perform of the present Democratic Social gathering being extra ideologically coherent than the present one. The Republican Social gathering (very a lot a reversal of the latest norm).
And I believe Goldberg is onto one thing right here:
[I]In giant elements of the Western world, the best has been so significantly better than the left at exploiting the hatred for the established order.
A part of the reply might be that the tradition of the left is solely much less welcoming, particularly to the politically unsure, than the best.
[…]
However I believe there’s a deeper drawback, which stems from a disaster of religion in the potential of progress. Liberals and leftists have loads of glorious coverage concepts, however not often articulate a believable imaginative and prescient of the longer term.
[…]
It’s straightforward to see what varied elements of the left wish to dismantle – capitalism, the carceral state, heteropatriarchy, the nuclear household – and far tougher to discover a real looking view of what comes subsequent.
[…]
The appropriate has a bonus in interesting to dispossessed and atomized individuals: it doesn’t have to supply a convincing imaginative and prescient of the longer term. All it wants is a romantic view of the previous to which it could possibly supply the false promise of return. When persons are afraid and stuffed with despair, “let’s return to the way in which issues have been” is a robust message, particularly for these with recollections of happier instances.
As Democrats be part of forces to attraction to school graduates and undertake the language and attitudes of the academy, it stands to cause that they are going to alienate former members. Working-class whites have most famously switched allegiances, however we have additionally seen some motion amongst working-class black and Hispanic voters. Progressive insurance policies on all the things from race to immigration to LGBTQ points, particularly when couched in maximalist trend, will naturally alienate some factions.
However after all, this reorganization works each methods. There are individuals like myself who have been Republicans for a few years who’ve been alienated by the rise of the Tea Social gathering and particularly the MAGA wing.
The explanation we pay a lot extra consideration to the previous than the latter is twofold. First, the preponderance of the elite media is liberal and progressive, so the columnist class is of course extra fascinated about why individuals who was once on their facet are drifting away. Second, and extra importantly, the unusual approach we elect our representatives—and particularly the president—has made the previous extra necessary.
In truth, I can fairly simply see a world the place Fetterman is a Republican, and positively the place the varieties of individuals interested in Fetterman would vote for Donald Trump over a Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton. Most individuals aren’t ideological, they vote as a substitute via a mix of behavior, tribal loyalty and character judgments. The identical individuals who admire Fetterman’s battle and like a beer with him to Mehmet Ozare prone to choose Trump.
UPDATE: Kevin Drum shares my skepticism concerning the underlying premise:
In truth, the quantity of people that determine as liberal has disappeared, in response to two dependable pollsters up over the previous 20 years:
Conservative ID, alternatively, has remained secure all through.
However, he has an attention-grabbing clarification for the phenomenon, regardless of its non-existence:
The plain reality is that being a liberal is onerous. You need to care about poor individuals and homeless individuals and Palestinians and trans individuals and the surroundings and black individuals and disabled individuals and Hispanics and neurodivergents and quick meals employees and animals and undocumented immigrants and indigenous peoples and plastic straws and public transportation and mass incarceration and DEI and white privilege and youngster labor and wage theft and lead pipes and academic fairness and systemic racism and bullying and local weather change and display screen time and maternal mortality and social justice and fatphobia and anti-Semitic tropes and voter suppression and financial institution charges and racial stereotypes and earnings inequality and protected areas and unconscious bias and soccer concussions and Black Lives Matter and eugenics and atonement for the previous and meals deserts and gender-affirming care and neoliberalism and well being fairness and flight and the unbanked and restorative justice and poisonous masculinity and biodiversity and colonialism and intersectionality and the worldwide south and malaria and sexual harassment and microaggressions and dolphin-proof tuna and energy relations and manufacturing facility farming and stereotype menace and Davos and cultural appropriation and habitat loss and #OscarsSoWhite and gender id and pronouns and whaling and police brutality and prosecutorial misconduct and Twitter and ableism and deeply problematic and heteronormativity and colonial collapse and eternally chemical compounds and physique shaming and white saviors and mansplaining and gentrification and hate speech and plastic water bottles and the Bechdel check.
It is fairly exhausting to fret about all this on a regular basis, and I am not even counting issues there all cares about, like abortion or gun management. In case you get overwhelmed by all of it – and particularly in the event you discover a few of these issues a little bit ridiculous to start with – it is fairly straightforward to drive proper, even in the event you’re not going full MAGA.
He isn’t fallacious. Extra to the purpose: In case you do not care about even just a few of them, you may be labeled an apostate.
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*Generally, they’re individuals in superior center age whose views on social points merely have not advanced since their youthful days, placing them out of step with youthful progressives.
**My spouse usually notes that I outline “regular” with my very own expertise as the middle. On this case, nevertheless, I understand that I, like most OTB readers, am decidedly irregular in spending a lot time analyzing politics and public coverage.