'I'm not a progressive': Fetterman breaks with the left, showing a maverick side
'I'm not a progressive': Fetterman breaks with the left, showing a maverick side
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has drawn fire from progressives over his fierce support for Israel and broken with immigration advocates with his support for curtailing migration.
Being a shill for the Israeli apartheid regime is the LEAST "maverick" thing you can possibly do in American politics.
To break with the left to join everyone else in enabling genocide isn't a brave and principled stand. It's ignorance at best, but more likely morally bankrupt cowardice.
Go home NBC, you're drunk on neoliberal gaslighting. Again.
Morally bankrupt, fiscally wealthy
Yeah, that's usually how it be in Congress 😮💨
Having a conversation about immigration isn’t a bad thing. Going in to that conversation looking to shove your view points down the others side throat IS a bad thing.
The reality is that we need immigrants to fill a ton of holes in our workforce but we also need to fix the system to allow legal immigration to be an easier process and to try to stem the tide of illegal immigration.
I don’t have the answers, but I know the problems exist and there are much smarter people who could help get ideas moving if the ideologues would get out of the way.
Yeah, most people against illegal immigration have no idea how arduous and expensive the process actually is. It's not as simple as going to the border and saying, "One greencard please."
I'm against illegal immigration, but the solution I'd like to see is a more streamlined process so people wouldn't need to pay coyotes to smuggle them across with no guarantee they'd even survive the trip.
If they want to come be productive members of society, why stop them?
Because America, by large, has been built upon immigrants coming over and shutting the door behind them so others can’t get their success.
We’ve done it as English colonists, we’ve done it during the Industrial Revolution, we’ve done it in the early 1900s, and we’re doing it now. It’s sadly a trend that we, as a country, never grew out of.
It's a ridiculous process to get a work visa even for skilled and educated people with money. I had a gf who had a PhD in material science with a wealthy family. She was working at a National Lab and was worried if she didn't get a permanent position there, she'd be scrambling to find a job that would give her an extension or she'd have to move back to Europe.
Apparently it used to be easier to get seasonal work permits for Mexicans wishing to work in the US, and it was common for workers to go back to Mexico after the work season. Most did not want to permanently move to the US, but preferred to return to stay with their families. Those visas were curtailed under Reagan, so they became much harder to obtain. Crossing back to Mexico became harder, so now more just cross the border and then never return. If we still had a reasonable system in place to allow temporary workers in, I’m sure we’d see less illegal crossings.
We need immigrants because they make the nation better, not to "fix holes" in the workforce. They're people. Let's talk about them like they deserve humanity.
Man I've said this over and over again. If illegal immigration is such a problem take a damn look at your system. My dad just thinks I'm some crazy liberal though for suggesting it. I live in a border state and I've been hearing the same empty talking points since I was a child.
He says it’s "near and dear" to him which is definitely bullshit. What should be near and dear to him are actual issues to his constituents. Things like, wage gaps, infrastructure, opioid crisis, affordable homes and health care.
I’ll agree with him on one thing; he’s not progressive.
You’ve seen the contents of his office mailbox? Is it not possible that he is reacting to his constituents concerns?
Politician uses leftists to get elected, immediately backs off leftism once in office.
"Maverick" my ass. This isn't a break from the left, it is a stomping down of the coalition that already had to fight tooth and nail against the Democratic Party pushing Conor Lamb.
A mAvEriCk SiDe
he's not some sort of independent thinker charting his own way through the murky waters of american politics, he's bought and paid for with a quarter million dollars of Israeli lobbyist money. I used to believe in Fetterman. I walked picket lines with him in Pittsburgh. I campaigned to help him and Tom Wolf into the governor's mansion in PA. I see this as a betrayal and he'll get neither a vote nor a kind word from me for the rest of his career.
Wait, so you agree with him so much on most issues that you campaigned for him, but disagree with him on a couple of difficult hot-button issues, and so you will never have another kind word for him? This kind of hyper-polarization from one extreme of support to complete vilification is what is wrong with American politics. Politics equals compromise, not going balls-out to completely crush anyone who is slightly further left or right of your position.
What happened to you, Fetterman. You used to be cool.
ugh... and he was doing so well...
I'm not american, but isn't calling yourself not progressive kinda... Shit? Why would you ever say that you don't like progress?
He didn’t say that. He said he is willing to have a discussion about immigration policy with republicans.
Whoever wrote the article is trying to speak on behalf of an entire political group called “Progressives” by claiming everyone in the group came to a unanimous decision to not discuss immigration (this isn’t true).
So the writer of the article is claiming Fetterman isn’t a part of the group of Progressives because Fetterman is willing to do his job by being diplomatic.
"Progressive" is a faction of Democrats. They aren't the only people that support progress.
I don't consider myself a progressive, because I disagree with about 30% (in very ballpark terms) of current progressive policy choices. It's not hard to imagine Fetterman feels similarly.
I absolutely disagree with Fetterman that immigration should be curtailed at all - Democrats are not a monolith. Most Democrat representatives disagree with some policy or other.
It is a label that is applied to a small group of democrats only, as far as I understand.
It's all just labels, it's not really the etemology of the word that people care about, but the ideas it represents. The opposite of progressive is conservative. I think if you were to ask anyone in particular, they would say that they'd like to progress some things and conserve others. It's just the label for who tends to do more of each. So it's less about saying your not "for progress" and more about showing what ideas you align with. And many conservatives wouldn't call progressive ideas "progress" if they were implemented; they think it'd be bad for society. So it's all just words at the end of the day to signify what ideas you align with
To be fair, even the blue states are feeling the resource and budget pinch with immigration and are aggressively calling for federal assistance. His views aren’t exactly out of line with his constituents on that issue.
Who are you referencing here? Illinois is the only one I remember, and their solution isn't to close the border, it's to speed up processing and stop a giant state from intentionally overstressing a smaller state. California is on the border and handling things just fine, but when suddenly all of Texas's immigrants get redirected to a state that doesn't have the infrastructure in place to handle them, it's a problem.
Yeah I think even Dems are seeing polling shift on this issue. By choosing to do absolutely nothing to stem the tide of border crossings (which Kamala Harris seems to have done) the party is realizing they're handing the GOP a huge political weapon that can (and will) be used against all of them, even if they're far from the border.
edit: Lol at y'all downvoting legitimate sources. Sorry facts hurt your fee-fees.
It's the same with the kids in cages thing, like this is what America is, and what it must do to maintain its position in the world. You have to be anti-American to sincerely criticize it. The political system absorbs and mediates the outrage so the system can maintain itself. Biden committed more funds to the border wall and immigration policy still puts kids in cages, and it always will so long as America is what it is. Climate change and mass migration will require America to become more harsh, just like the European countries who let the migrant ships sink with families drowning in front of their eyes. Party politics can point the blame so nobody has to feel guilty.
Typical neoliberal scumbag. Buddy up to the left to get elected then as soon as you're on the inside and have the power to actually chnge something, unleash your inner cliche villain and start loudly supporting the worst things you possibly can.
And I was beginning to wonder how dense the one who stated the following about Fetterman
When he said he was 100% for Israel and I saw he took AIPAC and other money from Israeli lobbies and said he was not a progressive my support ended. He lied to us. I hope to vote for a progressive opponent in his next primary.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Fetterman is just kind of an opportunistic liar. He’s not there yet, but he’s well on his way to becoming a Kristen Sinema-level charlatan.
Can you illustrate why you think this? I’ve heard almost nothing about his work since getting elected.
Our elected representatives need to be able to use their brains and their consciences and represent us over their political parties. Good for him standing up. If you aren't aware -represent us is working on making it so this can happen more often.
f parties didnt exist this would be a conservative, just like the sitting president.
this person here is really just a republican too afraid to call himself that, like a huge chunk of the 'democratic' party.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON — Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., is breaking with progressives on hot-button issues with his fiery support for Israel and calls for Democrats to engage on tougher immigration laws, disappointing some on the left as he shows an independent streak.
Fetterman insisted he can be pro-immigration while also favoring policies to restrict the flow of migration to manageable levels, disagreeing with progressives who oppose new limits on asylum and bash some of the ideas in the negotiations as cruel.
The senator added that while it’s “not ideal to have this conversation” about asylum and parole policy in connection with an aid package for Israel and Ukraine, “it’s still one that we should have,” given that Republicans have made it an essential condition to advance the supplemental bill.
Fetterman’s fierce and unwavering support for Israel breaks sharply with demands by Sanders to withdraw U.S. military aid and has drawn searing criticism from the left as the Palestinian death toll soars amid the Israeli government’s bombing campaign in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
“For a lot of Republicans, it’s been a pleasant surprise,” said Christopher Nicholas, a longtime GOP strategist based in Pennsylvania, referring to Fetterman’s stances on Israel, border policy and Menendez.
Fetterman chief of staff Adam Jentleson said the senator has “always had” the policy positions he’s espousing today, even though Republicans wanted to paint him as a socialist in 2022 and “some folks on the left are pretending” he has since changed his beliefs.
The original article contains 1,044 words, the summary contains 247 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!