TPM: "Nope. Fetterman Isn't Going Full Manchin. Not Even Close." [View all]

[Bucky]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/nope-fetterman-isnt-going-full-manchin-not-even-close/sharetoken/9EvFY760kA4A

{shared article from subscriber}

Nope. Fetterman Isn’t Going Full Manchin. Not Even Close.
April 23, 2024

....There’s no question that Israel and Gaza are very big issues for a lot of Democrats now. And if that’s people’s reason for being upset with Fetterman, that’s certainly fair. But what we see here is a pretty concerted effort to stretch and paste and papier-mâché his position on Israel into some general apostasy or emerging Manchinism when there’s really no evidence of that. Indeed, the HuffPost article makes clear that on universal health care, income inequality, LGBTQ rights, pot legalization and criminal justice reform, Fetterman remains outspokenly where he always was.

The only other scrap the Manchinism crowd has to work with is that Fetterman has said that tightening the southern border can’t or shouldn’t be a third rail for Democrats. But it’s hard to see how that’s any different from where President Biden is on the issue, or the bill he tried to get through Congress before Donald Trump put the kibosh on it in the House.

Where Fetterman has played into this is arguably at a rhetorical level. He’s pugilistic. Many of his comments on Israel have clearly been intentionally provocative. In response to progressive/Squad-like criticisms he’s said well, I’m not a progressive. That’s you, not me. I’m not woke. But this is really no different from the kind of shoot-from-the-hip regular guy-isms that have always been his brand. It’s just that he’s using it in a fight with a part of the party that’s in his face about his dogged support for Israel.

At the risk of stating the obvious, if you’re going to be a progressive Democrat (in the generic rather than the branded Squad copyrighted sense) it’s always been clear that you’re going to be at least tonally different if your base is outside of one of the big left-leaning metroplexes. The conceit of the beltway has often been that that means you need to be more “centrist,” more business and tax-cut oriented, a bit more traditionalist on topics like abortion and LGBTQ issues. But Fetterman’s shown fairly clearly that that isn’t really the case. Often quite the contrary, especially on fiscal policy and populist economics issues...