It takes a special kind of Leftist to argue with a straight face that they have the moral high ground when it comes to discussing John Fetterman's mental health.
In 2022, during his run for the PA Senate seat once held by Republican Pat Toomey, it was clear Fetterman was, in a word, unwell.
He suffered a serious stroke (really, there isn't any other kind) on May 13 of that year. It left Fetterman with expressive and receptive aphasia (the inability to express himself in speech or understand those speaking to him).
Throughout the senate race, conservatives expressed concerns about Fetterman's ability not only to run for the Senate, but to serve. After all, Fetterman needed closed captioning during interviews. The Left said this was simply a disability accommodation, no different than a wheelchair or hearing aids.
Any criticism was dismissed as ableism, just another 'ism' in the Left's arsenal of pejoratives used to shut down debate. They used that card so many times, however, they rendered it moot.
But they didn't need to render it moot when they could just ignore it. And ignore it they have.
After propping up John Fetterman during the campaign, the Left has decided a guy who votes with Democrats 98% of the time is not in lockstep enough with the party to keep him around. Now, suddenly, concerns about his mental health struggles have popped up in news pieces across social media.
And it is the Right who is, correctly, pointing out the rank hypocrisy of it all. Just a year and a half ago, our criticisms and concerns about Fetterman were dismissed as the discriminatory actions of heartless conservatives who just didn't understand disabilities.
Today, our 'dismissal' of the Left's concerns is 'hackishness.'
Just ask Jonathan Chait. He wrote an entire paragraph about it.
On the hackishness of the right-wing dismissal of Fetterman's mental health struggles https://t.co/kh8lrrSTvb pic.twitter.com/5SVVQT46qD
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) May 10, 2025
The paragraph reads:
None of these articles acknowledges, let alone attempts to rebut, Terris’s extensive account of Fetterman’s erratic behavior, which is at least as clear as the evidence of Biden’s infirmity. Many of the conservative attacks conflate the effects of Fetterman’s stroke, which occurred before the 2022 election, with his hospitalization for depression the following year, questioning how Democrats could vouch for Fetterman in 2022 while doubting his fitness today.
Of course we're not going to rebut Fetterman's behavior. Because that's beside the point.
Given everything that's unfolded over the last several months with regard to former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and the Left's complicitness in covering for it, we're just trying to figure out what the Left's own rules are.
Why was it fine to run John Fetterman during the campaign, when he was visibly, publicly, unwell and struggling, but now, suddenly, a crisis that requires intervention (up to and including his removal from office?)
The answer is, of course, the same as it was with Joe Biden: because it's now politically expedient for the Left to oust a guy who departs from his party on one hot-button issue: Israel and the Jews.
And that's what this all comes down to. If John Fetterman joined the anti-Semitic Squad in denouncing Israeli genocide and blaming Israel for the war Hamas started, this wouldn't be an issue. John Fetterman could be drooling in a cup in the corner of his office, or weeping under his desk from depression, and the Left would drag his quasi-corpse into the Senate to cast a reliable vote for the Democrats' legislation du jour. They pulled Dianne Feinstein in for a vote just hours before she died, after all.
But Fetterman stands with Israel and against the anti-semitism that infects a not insignificant portion of the Democratic Party's base. For that sin, he must be excommunicated. They're just cloaking it in faux concern over his mental health.
And we need look no further than Chait's own past posts on Fetterman:
Fetterman is suffering a temporary health problem, while Walker is obviously stark raving mad https://t.co/4MNtC8HTsg
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) October 21, 2022
Now it's (D)ifferent when they do it.
Congrats, Chait. You are the King of Calvinball.
Come collect your crown.
