Yes, Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman’s blue-collar cred is nonsense: The Harvard-educated son of a self-made insurance executive, he lived off the family dime until he was nearly 50.
But his cuddly social-media-driven campaign also hides just how terrible his actual, radical policies are.
Consider his recent appointment of Celeste Trusty, a self-described “buddy” of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, to the state’s Board of Pardons (which Fetterman, as lieutenant governor, leads). Trusty is a cop-hater who wants to “disarm” law enforcement, a position Fetterman shares.
Her appointment is only one part of Fetterman’s assault on public safety. On his watch, the Board of Pardons recommended commutation at least 46 times, including 13 times for convicted murderers, where past LG’s boards averaged just four.
Per a Washington Free Beacon analysis, Fetterman himself has voted to release more criminals doing life than any other Board of Pardons member. In 2021, he cast the lone votes to spring a guy convicted of murdering a teen for heroin money and to free a man who murdered a woman with a pair of scissors.
He’s also backed policies like the mass release of prisoners and softening sentences for killers. Fetterman endorsed Philly DA Larry Krasner after murders shot up 40% on his watch.
That must be why he got endorsed by Brand New Congress, a lefty group set up by formers Sanders organizers that advocates for defunding police.
On schools, he’s just as bad. He called COVID school closures an “absolute necessity”; he also opposes vouchers for learners stuck in low-performing school districts, but sends his own children to the Winchester Thurston School ($34,250 a year) — presumably to avoid the sub-average district containing Braddock, the town where he launched his political career as mayor and still lives. School choice for me, but not for thee.
(By the way, after backing COVID lockdowns, he skipped off to the Jersey Shore in the depths of the pandemic.)
Then there’s his bizarre 2013 vigilante attack against a black man jogging in Braddock. Fetterman with no evidence thought the jogger was a criminal and held a shotgun on the guy until the police arrived and broke up the insanity. (That last would be a career-ender if Fetterman weren’t a Dem, by the way.)
It turns out Fetterman even defended Barack Obama’s notorious 2008 campaign-trail remarks about small-town Pennsylvanians being “bitter” and clinging to “guns or religion” — the clearest possible sign that he’s another hipster progressive, not the working-class hero he pretends.
If his stroke hadn’t allowed him to avoid public and media engagement (and all but one debate), voters likely would already realize what a giant phony Fetterman is. Pennsylvanians should kick this woke elitist to the curb.
