I’ve known John Fetterman for years — his new signals are terrifying

I first noticed John Fetterman when he was still Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor. His hoodie and shorts became a national fixation when GQ named him one of its most stylish in 2020.

Before that, he was the towering mayor of Braddock, a heavily Democratic community outside Pittsburgh, my hometown. What put him on my map was the great flag controversy at Pennsylvania's State Capitol in 2021.

Fetterman had hung a Pride flag from his balcony at the state Capitol. Republican lawmakers, irritated, rushed through a goofy measure declaring that only state and U.S. flags could fly there, an obvious shot at him. One night, someone – wonder who? – came under cover of darkness and took the flag down. He put it back. They took it down again. He put it back again.

As a senior editor at The Advocate at the time, I wanted to talk to the guy with that kind of in-your-face pushback to homophobic GOP state legislators.

We hit it off. We're both from Pittsburgh, die-hard Steelers fans, raised on Primanti Brothers sandwiches before the rest of the country discovered them. When he beat Dr. Oz in 2022, a man who once turned crudités into a campaign talking point, I spoke with him again.

He was full of big plans, a staunch supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and workers' rights. We spoke about his stroke and his determination to get back on the campaign trail.

I've lived in New York City for over 30 years, but I spent seven years of my early career working for my southwestern Pennsylvania congressman, and that state's politics never leaves you.

Fetterman seemed to be doing well when he checked himself into a hospital for treatment of severe clinical depression.

After he returned, I spoke with him again. I have known my own struggles with mental health and severe depression, and we shared our stories. I told him about my attempts at suicide, and he admitted to thinking about it too. Our conversation was honest and human. I walked away rooting for him as a person.

That is what makes the last two years, and what’s happened to him, brutally hard to write about.

The John Fetterman of today has drifted from the progressive Democrat he once was. His staunch defense of Israel has enraged the Democratic base.

He voted against a war powers resolution on Iran twice. He has worked openly with President Trump and Pennsylvania’s conservative Republican Senator Dave McCormick, even appearing in a Republican midterm convention video. To me, that was nonsensical and a stunt that went too far.

He calls himself a "commonsense Democrat," but many Pennsylvanians who elected him don't recognize the description. One poll put his approval among Pennsylvania Democrats at a dismal 19 percent, while Republicans' approval climbed to 72 percent.

Then came the devastating September Wall Street Journal report. More than a dozen former staffers and lawmakers described a senator increasingly isolated, skipping votes, blowing off meetings with groups like Children's Hospital of Philadelphia over Medicaid cuts, and missing nearly every committee hearing on his calendar.

The article reported that he attended one of 46 committee hearings in 2025. He has cycled through three chiefs of staff since 2023. Fetterman and his defenders call the allegations politically motivated, payback for his votes. But a dozen people told similar stories that were hard to ignore.

I can’t pretend I'm neutral about where this is headed. Democrats tiptoed around him because they needed his vote, a failed strategy. Now, with the midterms behind us, that leverage is gone, and I suspect so is his remaining loyalty to the party.

My guess is that he coasts through the final two years of his term and doesn't run again. But Pennsylvanians deserve better than a coast. Nothing matters more to voters than showing up and doing your job, not taking taxpayer money for doing nothing.

The stakes are far too high for a Democratic senator to look the other way. Now is the time for him to jump back into his job and the Democratic Party.

Here is where I struggle. I'm not a doctor, and I won't diagnose a man from afar. But I see signs that worry me. At my lowest points, I lost interest in my job. I loved my career, so drifting away was a telltale sign that I wasn’t right.

A friend, a vibrant weekend athlete, suffered a stroke young and was never quite the same, physically or mentally. Watching Fetterman, I think of him. Recovery from a stroke and depression isn't a straight line, and the person I knew years ago disappeared. Both my friend and Fetterman.

Part of me wants to give Fetterman the benefit of the doubt. My first wish is that he's okay.

But compassion and accountability can coexist. A senator's struggles explain a lot. They do not excuse a record of absence or failing to help Pennsylvanians hurting under Medicaid cuts, job losses, inflation and all the other pain Trump and the GOP have caused them.

If he can't do the job fully, he owes voters candor. If he can, he owes them his presence.

I want to see the fighter who flew that flag on a Capitol balcony when it would have been easier to take it down: the Steelers-loving, working-class champion who cared about LGBTQ+ Americans, laborers and workers.

I want to see, well, let’s call it the resurrection of John Fetterman, who will spend these last two years fighting for the country's recovery from the damage Trump has done. If he does, I believe people will want to help him back on his feet, just as I do.

America needs that John Fetterman. I hope he's still in there.