Han er en modig mand og en af de sidste demokrater, som kan – og vil – samarbejde på tværs af partilinier
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Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is a Democrat. He’s a left-wing Democrat, too. His party is hoping to regain control of Congress so it can can stop Trump’s agenda and impeach him.
Yet he actually spoke at the GOP’s midterm convention Wednesday night.
It’s true.
Fetterman appeared via a prerecorded video to introduce Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) before his speech and praised both McCormick and President Donald Trump for standing up for America’s steel industry.
“Yes, I’m Senator John Fetterman, Pennsylvania. Yes, I’m a Democrat,” Fetterman said in the video. “Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I’m a common-sense Democrat. I’m always going to stand with America, I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life.”
He didn’t stop there. Fetterman called McCormick “the kind of senator that gets the job done” and said he was “proud to count him as my friend,” despite the two men belonging to opposite parties. Standing near a U.S. steel mill, Fetterman promised to work with Trump “to fight and defend the steel way of life right here in the Steel Valley.” Then he turned the floor over to his Republican colleague. “So for everybody in Dallas, I’m here to introduce Dave McCormick,” Fetterman said.
Now, obviously, Fetterman isn’t exactly riding high with his own party these days. His approval numbers among Pennsylvania Democrats have collapsed, and he’s facing a near-certain Democrat primary challenger when he’s up for reelection in 2028. With fewer than eight weeks left before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, an appearance like this isn’t just a friendly cameo; it’s more like a giant middle finger aimed squarely at his own party.
According to a report from Axios, the convention cameo set off a fresh round of speculation over whether Fetterman will ditch the Democrat Party altogether before his 2028 reelection fight. A defection would be a nightmare for Democrats, who need to flip four seats, some in deep-red territory, just to retake the Senate majority.
Of course, I’ve said for a long time now that Fetterman isn’t going anywhere. He still votes with Democrats 95% of the time, and his actual policy positions remain solidly on the left. The video functioned as a calculated jab at his own party’s socialist drift.
And the jab landed exactly where the GOP wanted it to. Republicans have spent this election cycle trying to tie the Democrat Party to its socialist wing, and having a sitting Democrat senator vouch for a Republican colleague in a primetime convention video does that work for them. Trump has spent years courting disaffected Democrats, so watching one show up on the GOP’s biggest stage of the cycle counts as a win he didn’t even have to ask for.
Crossover convention appearances are rare, but they’re not unheard of. The late Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) endorsed George W. Bush over John Kerry in 2004 and spoke at that year’s Republican convention. The late Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) went from being the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2000 to speaking at John McCain’s GOP convention in 2008, because he viewed Barack Obama as too radical and dangerous for the country. And in 2024, Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat presidential candidate, endorsed Trump and spoke at the Republican convention herself.
Fetterman’s cameo fits that same pattern: a Democrat willing to say, on camera, that his own party has drifted too far to trust. Make no mistake about it, the rest of the country just watched one of their senators make the GOP’s argument for them, and that was awesome.
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