There has been a long-standing feature in the Democratic party of people being elected as Democrats, even on somewhat progressive platforms, and then abandoning their constituents and cozying up to Republicans. While they often vote against their own party on crucial issues, the party leadership hesitates to call them out, partly because they need their vote on other issues and partly because their potential defection gives the party leadership an excuse to water down their policies in the service of their neoliberal ideology. In the House of Representatives, Tulsi Gabbard is an example. In the US Senate, examples are Joe Lieberman, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema, all of whom thankfully have died or left office. But now we have John Fetterman.

This article says that former Fetterman staffer are revealing that he does not seem to be interested in doing the work of being a senator.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to publish the text messages, and reported that Fetterman has routinely dismissed and at times refused to do core aspects of the job, such as meeting with constituents, holding events in his home state and attending hearings. A former staffer confirmed the accuracy of the Journal’s story to CBS News.

In one incident, Fetterman reportedly told people he was sick to avoid meeting with a group of paralyzed military veterans from Pennsylvania. Instead, he appeared on Fox News. Fetterman also dismissed requests to meet with representatives of a children’s hospital and to attend the funerals of three slain police officers near his hometown, according to a set of 2025 text exchanges reviewed by CBS News. 

The former staffer said of Fetterman: “You can’t have any sort of substantial conversation with him about any policy or strategy without it becoming completely derailed or unhinged.”

This article expands on the story.

Fetterman, a first-term senator, has become, as one ex-staffer told Mother Jones last year, “Trump’s favorite Democrat.” He’s sided with Republicans on a myriad of issues, including voting against limiting Trump’s attack on Iran and taking a hard-line approach to immigration. He has rejected calls to shut down ICE and instead favors what he describes as “commonsense reforms.” (This despite the fact that his own wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, was herself previously undocumented.) He’s also a strident backer of the Israeli government at a time when many Democrats are no longer defending Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank; the WSJ report charged that he’s spent time courting conservative media and the pro-Israel advocates at the expense of many other constituencies.
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Much of the discussion about Fetterman has centered around how much his decision-making has been impacted by a stroke he suffered in 2022 while on the campaign trail. A May 2025 story in New York magazine reported on what staffers said was an alarming series of personality changes over time. His former chief of staff Adam Jentleson wrote in a 2024 memo quoted by the magazine that Fetterman was, in his words, “on a bad trajectory,” and outlined apparent impacts on his approach to work and policy: “Conspiratorial thinking; megalomania (for example, he claims to be the most knowledgeable source on Israel and Gaza around but his sources are just what he reads in the news — he declines most briefings and never reads memos); high highs and low lows; long, rambling, repetitive and self centered monologues; lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room.”
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The new anonymous Twitter account—calling itself Former Fetterman Staffers—is, according to The New York Times, “authentic” and “a group effort.” The bio for the account describes it as a group of former staffers who are “disgusted with what he’s become” and are “here to share our stories & make sure Pennsylvanians know exactly who he is.” The account said it would share its first “drop” on September 14th, the day the Senate reconvenes for its next session.

It will be interesting to see what is revealed on the 14th.

Fetterman’s term expires in 2028. It seems highly unlikely that Democrats will renominate him.