Will he or won’t he? Senator John Fetterman is causing heart palpitations among Democrats with his recent threat to cross the political aisle should they “officially become the anti-Israel party.” Ever since he announced that he would form a joint campaign fundraising committee with his fellow Pennsylvania Republican senator David McCormick, Fetterman has captured the spotlight, which is how he likes it. New York magazine reports that in 2026, Fetterman has already popped up on Fox News 56 times.
It’s quite a remarkable turnaround for Fetterman who originally campaigned for the Senate from the Left, defeating his more mainstream Democratic rival Conor Lamb in the 2022 primary. As Lamb went to the slaughter, he was reviled by Progressives as Joe Manchin redux, the West Virginia senator who regularly bemoaned his party’s drift to the Left and often voted with the GOP. Now it is Fetterman who has picked up the Manchin mantle and then some. It all began when Fetterman suffered a near-fatal stroke in May 2022 that left him with an auditory processing disorder as well as a severe cause of depression. Since then, the hulking senator, who favors hoodies and gym shorts as his go-to sartorial wear, has upended Washington by going from Bernie-bro to thorn in the side of the Left.
The Pennsylvania senator’s volte-face is serving him well
Fetterman has always been something of a political chameleon. For all his feints at working-class credentials, Fetterman attended Harvard and was financially supported by his parents into his 40s. It’s unclear that he ever held a real job, apart from working, if that’s the right word, in government. It’s also the case that he has opposed school vouchers even as he sends his own children to private schools.
Some believe that his conversion is sincere. Fetterman is often said to have been deeply influenced by the ghastly shooting that took place at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018. Jennifer Murtazashvili, a professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, is a leading voice in the local Jewish community. She told me that he is “unusual because he is willing to stand up to the mob rather than be governed by it. That willingness to tell uncomfortable truths and resist intimidation is increasingly rare in American politics.” Certainly Fetterman forms a stark contrast to other Pennsylvania politicians such as Summer Lee, a congresswoman from Squirrell Hill who regularly castigates Israel as, among other things, an apartheid state.
As he plays footsie with the Republican party, however, Fetterman has demonstrated that he isn’t actuated solely by high-minded political principle but by expediency. Fetterman’s standing in the Democratic party has plummeted, and would be unlikely to survive a rematch with his former antagonist Conor Lamb in 2028. The result is that it might be tempting for Fetterman fully to discover his inner Republican should the Senate be a tossup after the midterm elections. In that scenario Fetterman would have maximum leverage to extract concessions from the GOP to ensure that it can retain its majority. Much would hinge upon Fetterman’s decision, not least President Trump’s ability to win approval of any potential Supreme Court nominees. Should the Democrats control the Senate, they would surely imitate Senator Mitch McConnell’s blockade of Merrick Garland during the final years of Barack Obama’s presidency.
Nor is this all. By the time 2028 rolled around, Fetterman could make a play at running as an independent. As veteran political analyst Ed Kilgore observed, Fetterman might be able to count “on his GOP friends to take a dive by nominating a weak candidate and signaling that crossover votes were okay.”
Fetterman’s volte-face is serving him well. His denunciation on Wednesday on Fox News of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani “a clown” for threatening to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought him a fresh spate of publicity. On Thursday Fetterman cast the deciding vote against a Democratic-led Senate war powers resolution on Iran.
At the same time, Fetterman has been careful to drub Trump for his focus on election fraud in 2020. “I don’t know why the president is dragging up all this stuff,” he said. “You’re the president. Do something positive, and you are talking about 2020.” Fetterman has found his political sweet spot. The longer Fetterman retains his calculated ambiguity about his intentions, the more he will remain at center stage.
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