In John Fetterman, Democrats Wanted a Regular Guy. And Boy, Did They Get One!

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In John Fetterman, Democrats thought they’d discovered a savant in the occult field of appealing to regular guys. But it turns out that he’s losing it—recent reports say he’s paranoid, neglecting his health, treating the people around him badly, and proposing the eradications of an entire foreign population (Palestinians in Gaza) in a bombing campaign.

So goes the current narrative around the Pennsylvania senator, triggered largely by a thorough and alarming New York magazine piece about his recent behavior and an Associated Press report detailing a meltdown he had in a recent meeting. (Fetterman says that he is in good health and that the accounts in the stories are not accurate.)

Democrats, it’s said, are surprised and upset by the turn that Fetterman’s story has taken. But should they be? Is there anything more in keeping with being a regular American guy than neglecting your health, treating the people around you badly, and proposing the eradication of an entire foreign population in a military campaign? Have these Democrats ever met a regular guy?

I am not trying to be glib myself. Fetterman, according to the pieces above, is driving dangerously and failing to take medication prescribed in the wake of a stroke and episode of depression. He is, allegedly, saying things like “kill them all” in reference to the Palestinian population in Gaza. (In a statement, he told New York magazine that he only supports killing members of Hamas.) His marriage, the piece says, has been put under strain. These are all serious things.

They are also serious things of the sort said, done, and experienced by many other men both in the contemporary U.S. (where the male loneliness epidemic is an ongoing subject of sociological study) and beyond. Much of the current media and cultural attention on men is on younger men—Gen Zers and adolescents—and the right-wing tendencies that may be engendered by their incel-ism, phone addiction, podcasting, and abhorrent haircuts. But older men have not ceased to exist, nor have their more timelessly self-destructive tendencies.

In the AP’s story, Fetterman melted down during a meeting with representatives of a teachers union, slamming his hands on the table and shouting, “Why does everyone hate me?” and “What did I ever do?” A staffer is said to have cried in frustration in a hall outside Fetterman’s office. This is a familiar domestic scene, staged at the Capitol. Men have a long tradition of cultivating a sense of persecution that manifests by exploding at those close to them. The aging man often believes that there is such a thing as acting logically, and that this is at once an objective, universal standard and something that only he, for some reason, understands. Dispute him on any of it, and he may well get cranky! Whether it’s an endearing cranky or an estranged for decades cranky depends on the man and the family. (To be fair, not every such man also believes in a “kill them all and let God sort them out” attitude towards military action against outgroups—but that, too, is a type of male outburst with a very long history.)

Such self-isolating, aggrieved XY chromosome cases recur throughout history and literature. King Lear, Daniel Plainview, Howard Hughes, late Richard Nixon, Dennis the Menace’s neighbor Mr. Wilson: All men who ended up more or less alone and believed that others’ failures, rather than their own decisions, required them to exist that way. Less severe, more treatable manifestations of the condition are common—there is a Toby Keith song, related appropriately to something that Clint Eastwood once said to him, that has turned into a self-help catchphrase reminding older men not to, basically, act like a grouchy old man. It is possible to embody the positive attributes of traditional masculinity without condemning oneself to its perils. (Have I been embarrassed to find myself shouting at my son, and being short with my wife, because they failed to intuitively understand some grunting utterance that made perfect sense in my own mind? No comment!)

To get back to politics, some Pennsylvania Democrats have leaked an internal poll showing that Fetterman’s approval ratings are underwater with Dem voters in the Pittsburgh area. That’s trouble for his chances of winning a Senate primary in 2028, but maybe not for his chances of running for president, which he’s reportedly considering, as an independent. Blunt, egomaniacal, and paranoid outsider figures have a history of catching fire in U.S. politics, from Ross Perot (who was supported disproportionately by male voters) to Jesse Ventura to the current incumbent. In the end, boys will be boys.