Will John Fetterman Go Full Benedict Arnold?

[Celerity]

Any re-election campaign in 2028 is doomed. Will he spend the remainder of his term completing the betrayal of his own constituents?

https://prospect.org/2026/05/06/will-john-fetterman-go-full-benedict-arnold/


Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) speaks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol, January 7, 2026. Credit: Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images

Is Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) going to switch parties? That’s the scuttlebutt in Washington, D.C., according to Politico. He has been one of Trump’s loudest supporters among congressional Democrats, and with the GOP looking down the barrel of a catastrophic loss in the upcoming midterms, they are hoping to buy themselves a Senate seat—literally. It seems Sens. Dave McCormick (R-PA) and Katie Britt (R-AL) have been assiduously working on Fetterman. Donald Trump as usual cut to the chase and offered a huge sack of cash by way of a message delivered through Fox News contributor Sean Hannity: “Your job is to tell him,” as Hannity recalled the conversation, “‘He’s gonna run as a Republican, he’s gonna have our full support, more money than he ever dreamed of, and he’s gonna win big.’”

Money may or may not be forthcoming from Trump—he does have a long history of broken promises on that score. But whether Fetterman turns full Benedict Arnold or not, he is not going to be any kind of senator come 2029. The most he can give Republicans is two years of support before they forget he ever existed. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I was a supporter of Fetterman against Conor Lamb in the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate primary. During the campaign, Fetterman was the apparent progressive and Lamb the moderate, but our current reality has conspired to deliver something completely different.

Some believe that Fetterman was always a secret conservative plotting this betrayal from the start, but I don’t buy it. I have lived in Pennsylvania since 2019, where Fetterman was the lieutenant governor up through 2022. He’s always been something of an odd duck, but there has been an unmistakable change in his behavior since he had a massive stroke that year, just before winning the Senate race. His family and staff—many of whom have since resigned—personally attest to this. And scientific research demonstrates that major personality changes can develop after strokes.

Before the stroke, Fetterman’s social media presence was a lot more silly and lighthearted, constantly cracking jokes with his wife and needling Republicans. In terms of policy, he mostly talked about LGBT rights, Medicare for All, legal marijuana, and unions, and in interviews he sounded like Bernie Sanders, who endorsed his 2022 campaign. These days, Fetterman’s social media features a lot more loud endorsements of either Israel’s or Donald Trump’s war crimes. He’s regularly going on Fox News to smear his own party as supposedly conducting an “orgy of socialism” or “communist takeover.”

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