Democrat John Fetterman Says Trump Holds ‘Special Kind of Place’ In PA After Butler Shooting, Hits His Party For ‘Felon’ Attacks

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Democrat John Fetterman Says Trump Holds ‘Special Kind of Place’ In PA After Butler Shooting, Hits His Party For ‘Felon’ Attacks
mediaite.com

Just switch parties already, for Christ's sake.

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Odd to see someone so seemingly left of the DNC pivot to being a DINO. Have to blame corporate money for some degree of it. He's completely lost it.

Didn't he recently have a stroke? That might have something to do with it.

He had a stroke before he was elected.

It was a few days before he was elected, and he had an operation on election day. So if he did change there wasn't enough time for anyone to know it.

Can't wait to put a different Democrat in his seat. What a disappointment for PA. Total loser.

Democrats are supposed to be a people who believe in redemption.

You have to want redemption first. It’s not just handed to you for breathing.

No, you're wrong.

Evangelicals know you get infinite redemption the instant you ask for it, period.

Because Jesus is just crazy for white people.

I feel so vindicated. When he was first elected I was calling out his fake every man persona and getting downvoted to hell for it. Walking around in flip flops and a hoodie as if he wasn't a silver spoon nepo baby. I never bought into his personality as genuine, and found all his bullshit to be a distraction from a lack of substance. Now it's very clear he's a silver spoon nepo baby, he's chosen his side and it's not with us regular folk. It's with his wealthy buddies.

I am inclined to blame the stroke he had, as it has lots of examples of altering people's personality's.

No, he had said a bunch of zionist shit before he was elected that people, myself included, assumed he was simply ignorant on and would move left when confronted with the truth.

Turns out it was just wishful thinking.

The stroke probably didn't help, and personality might account for how Fetterman expresses his support for genocide by rubbing his former supporter's faces in it, but there's not a "don't genocide Palestinians" part of the brain that got turned off.

I feel so vindicated.

I don't.

You know why?

BECAUSE HE'S A FUCKING CAUCUS VOTE FOR COMMITTEES!!!!!

He votes dem, once, at the beginning of term, he can do whatever the fuck he wants otherwise.

It's 51-49, fucking grow up, kid.

What a disappointment this guy turned out to be.

Well to be fair, brain damage can make anyone dumber.

More conservative, as well. It’s rather interesting - anecdotally my grandma’s second husband used to be a kitten loving sweetheart who wrote poetry. He got some concussions when we were tiny and he turned into the most bigoted racist sexist crude unfiltered festering asshole of a person.

Though I’ve read a few times from different sources that tends to be the case.

I was the opposite. My concussion made me leave mormonism

For Legal reasons this is a joke

Kinda funny, but I left the church after I got decompression sickness from scuba diving.

Like the suffering was so much that it convinced you there is no god?

Not the pain but the psychological and personality changes lead to it.

There is a lot more to decompression sickness than I was aware, then. I'll have to read up a bit.

I had stage 2 where the nitrogen bubbles traveled to the brain. Since I was not diagnosed right away they believe proteins started to form around the bubble. So after multiple “trips” in the hyperbaric chamber I was still experiencing negative symptoms.

His brain is not working properly after the stroke.

That's just an excuse. Truth is he was never on your side. He's a rich guy's useless kid

He had a near-death scare and changed from "for the good of the people" to "everyone for themselves" and sold out to make as much money for himself and his family as he can.

Just my theory, but shit like this can change people when it shows them their own mortality.

Someone’s not getting re-elected.

I think he wants a shot at the governor's office. The Senate seems to cramp his style, and he doesn't have the chops for national politics. He was Lt Gov, and has a significant advantage in name recognition and fundraising as a current Senator. Plus, the DNC is probably already vetting primary challengers to run against him in 2030.

PA is a weird state, in every way possible, and Shapiro did a lot of damage to his image in his attempt to land the VP job. If Shapiro decides not to run for reelection, the Democrats don't have a deep bench in Pennsylvania. Austin Davis is probably the only other name worth considering.

Fetterman would not win anything in a nationwide race, but if he can bring the Pennsyltuckians out to vote for a Democrat, he would win the state in a landslide.

the DNC is probably already vetting primary challengers to run against him in 2030.

Why would they? What has he done to anger them? If anything, having another Sinoma/Manchin waiting in the wings gives them more excuses why they can't do the things their constituents want them to do.

The ideal position for the democrats is controlling all 3 branches, but being unable to actually do anything their constituents want, since the desires of their constituents are mutually exclusive with those of the donor class.

this guy is such a tulsi gabbard ass loser

Most of Pennsylvania is red. Pennsyltucky is a thing. It has one of the biggest KKK groups in the nation.

So my eyesbrows were raised when I saw he wasn't from a more liberal area like Philadelphia.

Not saying they aren't out there in PA. I'm just saying there's a lot of folks who are backwards AF in PA.

He hasn't even tried redemption. Hell, he hasn't even begun to pay for his previous crimes and is looking to commit more crimes. Redemption is when people try to make things right. How can you say this is about giving second chances when all he's done is try the same shit the second time around. What a disappointment.

This does sound like he's got his tongue up Trump's butthole, but he's also not wrong. There are a lot of Trump supporters in rural Pennsylvania, and they are not swayed by the felony conviction or the racism or the dementia or the rape, because those inbred meth-heads are able to relate to Trump on a personal level.

He's not wrong about some of what he said. He also said this about Trump being a felon-

I mean, I thought Democrats, we were the party that was all about second chances and that we’re not going to condemn somebody based on mistakes or things in that kind of situation.

The idea that the party would give a second chance to Donald Trump when he hasn't even been sentenced yet is insane.

he also characterized trump's actions as "mistakes":

we’re not going to condemn somebody based on mistakes

I guess at 78 trump is still learning and making a few mistakes along the way

You're right. I didn't even think about that. What a stupid fucking thing to say.

You also need to be remorseful to deserve a second chance. Be a man and own up to your mistakes.

I do not think TFG is capable of that.

I agree with you completely about that. Honestly, it sounds like somebody who's about to have a scandal break.

Also, this is, like, chance 15 for Trump anyway

Well if this guy keeps billing himself as a Democrat then he's not likely to get reelected. He could get out-primaried.

This is definitely the last time he holds office. He did little other than turncoat after he had a concussion.

What you end up with when all you have is 'the other guy is worse.'

How did saying the other guy is worse cause Fetterman to get brain damage?

No, sorry, that's glib. Do go on, tell us all how Mehmet Oz is the same or better.

Reading the full quote

“Trump has created a special kind of a hold … and he’s remade the party and he has a special kind of place in Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said Thursday to a crowd at The Atlantic Festival. “And I think that only deepened after that first assassination attempt.”

“I also want people to understand, you know, and it’s not science, but there is, there’s energy and there’s kinds of anger on the ground in Pennsylvania, and people are very committed and strong,” Fetterman said. “Trump is going to be strong and … we have to respect that.

“I’m not going to sit down with a sitting vice president and tell her or say ‘Hey, no, no you better,’” he said. “I’m certainly not going to ‘mansplain’ that [to] the vice

I think he's just saying don't take PA for granted and there's a lot of work. It doesn't sound like an endorsement at all.

You left out the Trump bootlicking part of what he was quoted as saying in the interview, which I find suspicious:

I thought Democrats, we were the party that was all about second chances and that we’re not going to condemn somebody based on mistakes or things in that kind of situation.

Or do you think the Democrats should give a second chance to a convicted felon who has yet to be sentenced for felonies that Fetterman considers to be mistakes?

Yeah, he’s soft-supporting trump. This quote plus the “trump is going to be strong” line are definitely pro-trump in some fashion, then not wanting to “mansplain”.

Oh I missed that. TBH I read this from a different story.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889312-fetterman-trumps-special-place-in-pennsylvania-deepened-after-shooting/

Yeah the quote is bad.

Reading this story it still just sounds like he hates the approach they're taking about campaigning against him.

Do I think saying Trump deserves a "second chance" is dumb and gross given how much the fucker gets away with on a daily basis? Absolutely. This was not a good way to phrase it. This doesn't sound like someone sucking up to Trump though. It just sounds like someone that doesn't want to lose PA.

I also haven't paid too much attention to Fetterman so if there's other instances of him saying shit like this then I'm happy to stand corrected.

He seems to have missed that this election is trump’s third chance, not second.

The felonies are for cheating in the 2016 election. And I think we all remember pretty well how 2020 went.

MURICA: Civic pride in the local shooting.

It’s really funny seeing ppl make the surprised pikachu face about fetterman.

I don’t agree with his reasoning, but I do agree with his assessment that it’s a mistake to push the felon message so hard with trump.

If simply being convicted of a crime makes you a person not worthy of serious consideration in the political sphere, is that implicit endorsement of the legal system? Seems pretty conservative if you ask me.

Even if a person was to believe that our legal system is infallible and that there’s nothing wrong with weaponizing its decisions against one’s enemies, doesn’t bringing up the felony convictions beg the question of what they’re for? That hasn’t been a powerful message for democrats.

I have no love for trump, democrats seem to be messing up here though.

Do you think Trump just made mistakes rather than blatantly committed crimes?

Because Fetterman does. He said as much.

I don’t know about all that but I know trump isn’t a criminal mastermind trying to end America. He is simply an absolute moron.

No one said he was a criminal mastermind. What he is is a convicted felon. And it was entirely of his own doing. It wasn't a mistake to pay off a porn star with campaign funds.

I honestly think it’s more likely that like almost every business, nonprofit and other organization I’ve had any experience with, trump doesn’t have a “proactive” filing regimen.

An old ass accountant I used to work with explained why it’s like this: why give them something to beat you over the head with? Just know the requirements, know the punishment and give the least amount of information you possibly can until compelled.

Of course, larger, richer groups are more able to take that strategy, but that’s a systemic problem.

But it doesn’t matter for the purposes of the crimes in question if it was an “innocent” mistake or purposeful omission.

I think it’s pretty disingenuous for the democrat message to be an attack on trump for simply having been convicted because democrats are at the same time trying to catch lefty and otherwise third party voters who see that criminal justice system as having serious fundamental flaws.

I think getting bogged down in the details of trumps convictions isn’t helpful to the democrats either because explaining them to people makes trump relatable. Nothing he actually did with money was a crime. It was not filing paperwork that was the crime.

The whole thing becomes more akin to having to pay a ticket for a taillight you got fixed because you didn’t bring the receipts to court.

“Your honor, the taillight in question is new, intact and installed on my car”

“Your car isn’t in my courtroom”

“It’s in the parking lot 80 feet to the west of your courtroom. I have a picture of it right here.”

“I will only admit a receipt”

Tbh the conviction rhetoric only appeals to reactionary right wing voters who want to punish people with records or makes him incredibly relatable to normal people.

If anything it seems like a hedge to move towards the right.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Trump was convicted of knowingly paying off Stormy Daniels with campaign funds. He was fully aware of it. There was no mistake.

Yeah I didn’t say that I think it’s a mistake, I said I think it’s not a good idea for the democrats to use the convictions as a lane of attack.

I even said that trump probably systemically doesn’t file paperwork he’s supposed to and that it’s common for people to do that.

Again, not filing paperwork is not the problem here. He paid a porn star hush money with campaign funds. He was fully aware of it. There was no mistake. There was no oversight. Nothing was overlooked. Nothing happened that he didn't know about it. This was a very simple case.

That’s not illegal.

The crime is not reporting it.

It’s reported on a filing. Sometimes electronic but paperwork in spirit.

If the “problem” in your words is the crime, then the problem is paperwork.

The crimes are falsifying business records, not paying hush money.

The hush money was paid by trumps attorney who was then reimbursed with campaign funds. The crime is not paying hush money, the crime is covering it up.

As I said before, I don’t think it’s a very good idea to try to beat trump over the head with the convictions. At best you appeal to reactionary voters who have regressive ideas about crime and justice and at worst you have to reply to questions like “it’s legal to pay hush money out of campaign funds?”

I'm sorry... paying hush money with campaign funds isn't illegal? Are you fucking joking?

Not in the slightest.

My understandings is that the convictions were for not keeping records of what he did, not reporting what he did with the money and trying to cover up what he did with the money, not for what he did with the money.

Falsifying business records are the 34 different counts he was found guilty on.

See all the blue here: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1848/trump-hush-money-trial-34-counts

Where do you think the money from those checks came from? It wasn't his personal bank account.

I guess I don’t take your meaning…

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s case went like this: With Trump’s approval, his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to stay silent about an alleged sexual encounter so as not to derail Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump then approved a fraudulent scheme to disguise the reimbursement to Cohen as legal expenses to hide the hush money.

In doing so, he ran afoul of election rules, prosecutors said, which amounted to “election fraud, pure and simple.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288wpj1glyo

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If simply being convicted of a crime makes you a person not worthy of serious consideration in the political sphere, is that implicit endorsement of the legal system? Seems pretty conservative if you ask me.

Tell that to the "party of law and order" over there.

Yeah I’m with you. That line of thinking will only attract support from conservatives.

I didn't know why you're getting downvoted. They did polling and focus groups back in July and most people said it wouldn't matter to them unless he got a prison sentence. They just don't see it as serious otherwise, much more like a speeding ticket.

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