Recent comments by Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman have drawn condemnation from Pennsylvania Indivisible chapters and advocates across the commonwealth.
In a recent interview with conservative news outlet the Washington Examiner, Fetterman said:
“I grew up in a conservative part of Pennsylvania. And I grew up, I knew, and I loved people that voted for President Trump. But they are not fascists. They’re not Nazis. They’re not trying to destroy the Constitution and those things.”
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The interview and comments followed a social media post earlier this month where Fetterman said “unchecked extreme rhetoric, like labels as Hitler or fascist, will foment more extreme outcomes. Political violence is always wrong – no exceptions. We must all turn the temperature down.”
Following the interview, Pennsylvania Indivisible issued a statement calling on Fetterman “to open his eyes to the masked federal agents on the street taking his constituents into custody without warrants, and with the intentional cruelty and excessive force we can all see on the news and in personal accounts of ICE interactions every day. The Trump Administration’s continual escalation of these unconstitutional actions and the fear they engender is the precise definition of fascism.”
In Bucks County and other parts of the region concerned citizens and advocacy groups are fighting back against Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran’s 287(g) partnership with ICE. A recent ruling by a Bucks County judge paved the way for Harran to continue on with the ICE agreement, for now.
“The Senator Fetterman I once knew would have been standing at our sides this weekend at the No Kings mobilization. Instead, this new iteration of Sen. Fetterman seems to have lost his moral compass completely and is essentially telling us ‘not to believe our lying eyes’ as we watch the Trump Administration using violence as a political tool. It is beyond disappointing. It’s a betrayal,” said Kierstyn Zolfo of Indivisible Bucks County. Zolfo is also the legislative chairperson of Pennsylvania Indivisible.
Abigail Grimes-Haldiman of Indivisible: Mayday in Elk County called out the dangers of the senator’s political ineptitude.
“Senator Fetterman’s inability to recognize the Trump Administration’s sprint towards fascism once again proves he is ill-equipped to meet this moment in American history. The administration has managed to flagrantly ignore Supreme Court orders, violate the rights of immigrants, and has begun a systematic dismantling of the entire administrative state in an attempt to secure plenary executive power … John Fetterman is sleepwalking our country towards authoritarianism,” said Grimes-Haldiman.
“Senator Fetterman is asking us to disbelieve what we see every day and not to understand the history of how fascism begins, as scholars describe it. He prefers to accuse us of labeling the everyday people he knows as fascist themselves. On the contrary, our statements are about what the administration and the people in it are doing, which is clear. Their actions are unmistakably fascism on the rise. Sen. Fetterman would do well to read a history of it,” said Indivisible Philadelphia group leader Vicki Miller.
