Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman has lost his unique leverage in Washington now that his party has pulled off a blue wave in the midterm elections.
The Democratic Party was handed control of the House and the Senate on Tuesday, dramatically reshaping Congress for the country.
In Pennsylvania, Fetterman has wielded the power of being the deciding vote in what was a narrowly divided Senate, as a Democrat willing to break with his party. But Democratic Senate gains across the country on Tuesday have pushed their seats from a minority of 47 to a majority of at least 54, after flipping at least seven seats, as of early Wednesday morning.
This means Fetterman, who has long faced criticism from wings of his party for obstructing the Democratic agenda by voting with Republicans, will now have less power to force his party to listen to the views he represents.
Let’s not blame people looking to change, but embrace them. Primaries are how we move the party to the left.
Last night was great progress towards damage control. Now we can start fixing things in the primaries.
Where do you see blame in my question? It’s an honest question.
My comment was more intended to keep people from dogpiling on your comment to drum up blame for Fetterman on those who didn’t participate previously but have now seen the importance. Your intent almost certainly wasn’t blame, but it could still nudge people in that direction, even if that wasn’t your intent.
I was usually the first in line to yell at people for not participating in the primaries over the last few years, and I felt a slight itch to fall back into it, so it was more of a “let’s celebrate a win and move forward together” comment than anything specific about the intent of your comment.
Part of them changing includes taking responsibility for their previous actions (or in this case, inaction). That includes accepting blame for the very real results of people never voting in primaries.
Fuck people who couldn’t be bothered until it started to directly affect them. They are, in large part, responsible for getting stuck with shit candidates and they should be able to accept this reality if they actually want to change.