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WILL JOHN FETTERMAN GO FULL BENEDICT ARNOLD?  
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Ryan Cooper
May 6, 2026
The American Prospect
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_ Any re-election campaign in 2028 is doomed. Will he spend the
remainder of his term completing the betrayal of his own constituents?
Is Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) going to switch parties? That’s the
scuttlebutt in Washington, D.C. _

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) speaks with reporters outside the U.S.
Capitol, January 7, 2026., Photo credit: Francis Chung/Politico // The
American Prospect

 

Is Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) going to switch parties? That’s the
scuttlebutt in Washington, D.C., according to Politico
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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
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And scientific research demonstrates
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that major personality changes can develop after strokes.

Before the stroke, Fetterman’s social media presence was a lot more
silly and lighthearted
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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
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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
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to smear his own party as supposedly conducting an “orgy of
socialism” or “communist takeover.”

All this means Fetterman’s political career is doomed. Pennsylvania
Democrats are absolutely furious at him, not least because he
specifically and repeatedly promised that he would not be the exact
kind of sellout senator he has turned out to be. Indeed, his entire
campaign
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from 2021 to Election Day was premised on being the deciding vote for
Joe Biden’s agenda, compared to moderates who kept voting against
it. He “will NOT be a Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema-type senator,”
he said
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in his campaign communications.

Polling shows that Fetterman’s popularity among Pennsylvania
Democrats has swung by an eye-popping _108 percentage points_
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from 68 points net favorable to 40 points net unfavorable
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re-election in 2028, he is going to be primaried and he’s going to
lose, by a lot, and he’s going to deserve it. Preparations for said
contest are already being made [[link removed]].

But Fetterman still has a record that’s far too progressive for a
Republican electorate, which prefers their senators to be slavering
psychopaths—ideally wealthy ones
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from out of state—untainted by so much as a nanogram of moral
decency. At least for the moment, Fetterman still has progressive
views on many important topics, like LGBT rights and unions, and he
voted against Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. Polling shows Pennsylvania
Republicans approve of him 73-18, but that is only because he is
hurting the Democrats, which they prize above everything else. If it
comes time to choose between Fetterman and a consistent conservative
with the stolen orphans’ lunch money to prove it, GOP voters will
almost certainly opt for the latter.

Indeed, where Fetterman has focused on defending Trump the most might
be a losing issue even among Republicans. Since October 7th and the
Israeli genocide in Gaza, Fetterman’s previous Zionist streak has
metastasized into a bizarre obsession with defending absolutely
everything Israel does
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along with Trump’s foreign policy writ large. Fetterman has backed
the war on Iran
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and even was the deciding vote
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effort to prevent Trump from attacking Cuba (!) for no reason.

Trump’s war on Iran in particular is one of the most obviously
stupid blunders in the history of warfare. It was unpopular from the
start and is only getting less popular
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as the consequences of the worst oil shock in history mount ever
higher, and it is ever more obvious that Trump has no idea whatsoever
how to fix the situation. And in part because the Israeli government
directly pushed Trump to attack Iran (as well as general disgust at
years of Israeli atrocities in Gaza), American support for Israel is
collapsing as well
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from a 55-42 favorable-unfavorable ratio in 2022, to 37-60 in 2025.
It’s also biased by age: 41 percent of Republicans in general have
an unfavorable view of the country, while 57 percent of Republicans
under 50 years old do.

Right-wingers like Tucker Carlson
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that this war is sinking Trump’s entire presidency, are starting to
maneuver to escape responsibility for going all out to support Trump
in 2024—and pinning the blame on Israel is an obvious strategy.
Alas, I would bet quite a few Pennsylvania Republicans will prefer an
open antisemite in 2028 to a fanatical Zionist.

Republicans might be buddying up to Fetterman right now, so they can
get two years of Senate votes out of him. But that’s all they’re
going to get. In 2028, they will throw him over the side without a
backward glance.

_[RYAN COOPER is a senior editor at The American Prospect, and author
of How Are You Going to Pay for That?: Smart Answers to the Dumbest
Question in Politics. He was previously a national correspondent for
The Week. His work has also appeared in The Nation, The New Republic,
and Current Affairs. __MORE BY RYAN COOPER_
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_Read the original article at __Prospect.org_
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_Used with the permission. © __The American Prospect_
[[link removed]]_, __Prospect.org, 2026_
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_Support the American Prospect_ [[link removed]]_._

_Click here_ [[link removed]]_ to support the Prospect's
brand of independent impact journalism._ 

* John Fetterman
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* Pennsylvania
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* Congress
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* Senate
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* conservatism
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* Democrats
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* Donald Trump
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* foreign policy
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* Gaza
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* Iran
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* Israel-Palestine
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* Politics
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* GOP
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* MAGA
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* republicans
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