11 November

Fettermanism. A Personal Story. Why It Worked, Why It’s The Most Important Political Story Of The Week

by Jon Katz

To understand why John Fetterman’s victory in the Pennsylvania Senate contest is so important, take a minute to read Ann Mintz’s message below, which she posted on my blog comment page this morning.

She told the story as well as I could and much better than the media did.

I live in Philadelphia,” wrote Ann, “and I’ve met John Fetterman twice. Not at events– once on the street, once at the ReadingTerminal Market. We had a very nice conversation about donuts. Amish donuts versus yuppie donuts versus Dunkin. We both prefer Amish. He’s very down-to-earth, very approachable, and quite charming.”

Imagine your U.S. Senator, Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, Ted Cruz, or Ron DeSantis having a conversation like that with a stranger on the street or even knowing what an Amish donut is. Fetterman not only got to talk donuts, but he also won a supporter for life.

Great politicians, like great writers, learn to tell stories people can relate to. No story lives unless people want to listen.  Senator-elect John Fetterman has the best political story, a parable for all of us, and he proved this week that people should listen.

Voters took some time off from hating fellow citizens and soaking up too many lies to keep track of. They went for empathy instead. In our time, that is big news.

John Updike said the measure of a good  story was one that people could read and say, “yes, that could be me; I understand that feeling.” I admit that when I worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer, I covered (and loved)  Pennsylvania politics, there is no state I know of that is more real or that has a Senator anything like Fetterman.

Before the scripted era of the slick and guarded robot candidate, politicians did that. They were often real people. But they don’t do it any longer before it is considered too expensive and too dangerous by their donors and handlers. If you are honest, you will offend somebody and get into trouble.

If you look like John Fetterman, you will not get to be a TV anchor or, in most states, run for the United States Senate.

Politicians and journalists now mostly read the polls and tweet to each other and take it from there. Fetterman tossed that conventional wisdom aside and set it on fire.

Being honest and being “real” has become a taboo in politics; being slick, evasive, and pleasing fatcat donors is required in our time. It’s not real people most politicians are looking for; it’s real money.

So politicians no longer seem honest and rarely tell us stories that make us say, “yes, I was there; I know what that feels like.” Mostly, they stick to the script and lie when necessary. Almost no one, even their supporters, trust them, which is one reason the country is so angry.

John Fetterman upended this creepy new reality and told the truth. It was an almost suicidal decision for him to appear on that debate. It wouldn’t have worked if he weren’t running against someone who had no business running for the Senate and, until recently, didn’t even live in the state. Donald Trump has many fanatically loyal followers, but even they couldn’t stomach the trashing of Fetterman.

In failing to be slick and angry and by taking enormous risks, Fetterman turned out to the winner.

When he had his brutal stroke right before the primary, he hid for a while, tried to regroup, and then decided to come out and let people see what had happened to him and how the stroke had affected him. Look at me, he said over and over again. Look at you.

It was one of the bravest decisions in the modern history of American politics, and I held my breath.

To my surprise – I have very little in common with this man – I  liked almost everything about him. I would love to sit down and have a cup of coffee with this man, something I can do about a few politicians.  And they make Amish donuts every day right up the road.

Compassion, like hatred and lies, spreads and grows. Fetterman and his followers let the genie out of the bottle. And wait until he gets to Washington. This is a movement that could spread and turn our politics upside down.

I  saw this curious magic working; all you had to do was look at his audience. Politics is often about magic. You just never know what will touch people and light them up. Amish donuts can do it. And perhaps compassion and morality will follow.

Heads started nodding in every audience Futterman faced. We all have been struck with illness, disappointment, loss, or pain.

When he spoke, we thought of our lost loved ones, our lost children, our lost jobs, and our lost hope. We’ve all been there. What emotions does Ted Cruz strike in our hearts, or Donald Trump? And I thought of my Open Heart Surgery and the death of my parents.

 

 

People like Ann Mintz spoke up for Fetterman daily, remembering his openness, humanity, and genuine concern for the little guy. His realness, for lack of a better word.

I remember my own struggle after my open heart surgery, which was easier than Futternan’s stroke in so many ways. But it changed me and opened up my soul. I was happy to see him muster the strength to show his vulnerability to us and take his chances. Most people don’t want to hate; it’s not a natural position.

When Fetterman spoke, I found myself saying, “yes, I know what it’s like to have your life upended and how hard one has to fight to come back and return to life.”

He had me in his pocket. In this cynical and angry time, I wanted him to win and send a message that being human is acceptable, even admirable, even in politics.

I think he became a warrior for the kinder and gentler country I miss.

As the cruel attacks on him multiplied, I rooted for him to debate his opponent, who was taunting him about his strike,  and put it all out there for people to see. It was a brave and dangerous choice and nearly cost him the election.

From a political perspective, it was a foolish and dangerous thing to do, and Fetterman stumbled incoherently all through the debate. It was too fast a pace for him; he wasn’t ready yet, and his poll numbers plunged for days afterward. It seemed he would lose.

His opponent, a doctor of all things, ridiculed him daily and warned he was too sick and confused to be a United States Senator (the Senate is the nation’s most lavish assisted care facility, being ill and confused (and old)  is almost a prerequisite.)

But then, the backlash emerged. In political terms, this was a miracle. The angels had shown up to help.

If one thing has been missing from our national politics, it is empathy and compassion. People didn’t like how he was ridiculed and pummeled by billionaire dollars and billionaire puppets. He seemed to touch people in a way no politician in America has for a long time.

When all is said and done, real people, ordinary people, and working people are the most powerful single force in American politics. Victory goes to those rare politicians who can reach and touch them because they are one of them.

That was a lovely and hopeful thing for me to see. It stood out; it was much more interesting than the rest of the blah-blah we were being fed all night about an election where nothing had really changed.

Except for Futterman and his victory for compassion and decency.

Our politics are dysfunctional, cruel, and disheartening. We are so stuck that politics have become dull and irrelevant to our real lives. If you are not a hater, an ideologue, a bigot, or an angry whiner, there is almost nothing for you in contemporary American politics.

The real people, the people in the middle, are gone from the civic system, disillusioned and disenfranchised or turning off the news.

Every election in recent years has been a different rendition of the same thing – right, left, conservative-liberal, stalemate, and stasis. I think of Harold Bloom’s book The Death Of The American Mind. Nothing kills thoughts quicker than labels people put on one another and on themselves.

Like our Presidential candidates, politics are becoming so predictable, paralyzing, and hostile that most people forget about them the minute an election is over. We need to live our lives, not in hatred and resentment.

For me, this is personal. I will not spend the rest of my life hating Joe Biden, Donald Trump, or Ron DeSantis. People who do that seem broken to me, even pitiful. Real life is not about arguing about conspiracy theories or which group of people to hate the most. These people will not define my life.

This perpetual narcissism, greed, and even treason are getting tiresome. We are getting numb to it.

John Fetterman woke me up and showed me what was possible. He drew me to him like bees on pollen.

We are afraid to have heroes in our culture; it’s only a matter of time before someone on social media comes up with some disqualifying dirt.

They tried to pull this on Fetterman. No less a politician than Newt Gingrich, the father of hate politics, went online to say that Fetterman’s many tattoos were the symbols of a motorcycle hate group. But this was Pennsylvania, which is crammed with real people. The accusation was a lie, and nobody bought it.

Although politics has everything to do with us, it has nothing to do with us and our daily lives.

You can either jump in and swim in a pond of hatred, grievance, and fear, or you can stay outside and go on with your life, presuming that you can keep away from those pathetic people carrying their automatic rifles around in big, noisy trucks to feel like real men.

Yesterday, in my first piece about Fetterman, I said he was ugly, a radical departure from the slick and programmed robots the billionaires push on us.

It wasn’t the best choice of words, and several of my readers scolded me about it, so I changed the wording and found a better and softer way to say what I meant to say: you rarely see national political candidates with goatish beards, all kinds of tattoos and cargo pants to campaign in.

He is the anti-billionnaire, the anti-Trump, and the anti-Marjorie Taylor Greene all in one.

He stands out.

People who know him love him. People who don’t know him love him.

His story is the iconic American story of loss, tragedy, and another chance. He is, as he put it himself, every man who was knocked down and got up again. He is, in so many ways, all of our stories. That’s pretty potent for a politician.

I couldn’t even count how many movies were made about that story or how many books were written.

It is the American story, and I know of no other national political figure who can match it or top it.

____

 

Fetterman photographs, courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer

 

 

 

 

7 Comments

  1. I hope every Democratic strategist and campaign leader in the US sits down and talks with the Fetterman team. They did an awesome job of slamming right back at any right wing punches with style and wit. They were out there when Fetterman was recuperating, getting his message out there. It was a great, well run campaign and I am so happy he won…..here in Texas we progressives our mourning but we will be back!

  2. Before retiring to VT in ’06, my husband and I lived in Morris County NJ for 20+ years. We weren’t very far away from PA, so we got to know who John Fetterman was when one of the network TV shows did a story about him when he was the mayor of one of the towns. Back in January of this year when John announced that he was going to run for the US Senate, I started sending him small donations through ActBlue and always got nice “thank you” emails from him or his wife. The reason that I really like him is that he and my son look as though they could be brothers. My son isn’t as tall. I shared your blog posting here onto the John Fetterman FB page as a private message. I think he’d like it.

  3. I think of Fetterman as an apple in a bowl of plastic fruit. He stands out because he’s a little bruised, a little misshapen and imperfect but nonetheless REAL. I’ll take real to fake perfection any day!

  4. John’s wife Giselle has been an important part of his story, especially since his stroke. She’s Brazilian by birth, came to the US as a child. She’s a citizen now but was undocumented as a child. I could go on and on but one of my favorite Giselle stories is that she opened the pool at the Lt Governor’s mansion to poor kids every summer.

  5. I think Fetterman is good looking. Good facial shapes, sweet eyes

    Compare to someone like eew Harvey Weinstein. Ew ew eeeew

    The only issue: You just might have to stand on a ladder to miss him

  6. I think Fetterman is good looking. Good facial shapes, sweet eyes

    Compare to someone like eew Harvey Weinstein. Ew ew eeeew. Or Oz’s hyperplastic face and hair

    The only issue: You just might have to stand on a ladder to kiss him

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Email SignupFree Email Signup