Three months ago, John Fetterman, a “tattooed giant” with a shaved head and goatee, defeated famous TV star Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate midterm elections. Although he was a former mayor and deputy governor, the aura of a “man of the people who doesn’t speak like the usual Democratic politicians” helped him. He had guaranteed the party a 51-seat majority and made the left dream of finding a way to win back the votes of white working-class voters without betraying progressivism.
Fetterman had been absent from that campaign for two months after suffering a stroke, but despite criticism of the communication difficulties evident during a televised debate with his rival, voters had rewarded him. Upon meeting her, he asked if anyone had had similar experiences in the family: many raised their hands. The stroke underlined his humanity and made his promise to help those who get back on their feet stronger: “I will fight for every small town that feels left behind,” he promised in his victory speech.
On Thursday, the 53-year-old Pennsylvania senator announced he had been hospitalized for clinical depression on the advice of the congressional doctor: “John has suffered from depression his entire life, but it has gotten worse in recent days,” explained During Biden’s State of the Union address on February 7, he was visibly ill: He said he felt “dizzy,” had gone to the hospital for a check-up, but a second stroke had been ruled out.
And once again, the fragility of this wiry man, whose physical strength is central to his political identity, is once again the subject of conflict in America. While the entire Democratic Party awaits his return and praises his courage in speaking out about mental health issues that politicians often hide, several right-wing commentators are calling for Fetterman’s resignation. During the election, Tucker Carlson called him “brain damaged” on Fox News, and Republicans accused him of lying about his true health. Fetterman promised, “I’ll be a lot better in January while Oz will still be a hustler.”
But in the Senate, where he has given up sweatshirts and Bermuda shorts for jacket and tie, he has struggled to adapt due to processing problems with sounds in the brain. They set up a screen in his office with a program that translates what is being said into subtitles in real time, and he always has an iPad with him so he can interact with individual colleagues, but he no longer pauses in the hallways to socialize journalists who once called him directly on his mobile phone, and his patience, explains an assistant, were put to the test every day.
Last week he asked a question about organic farming and trade, and though he stumbled a little, his advisors released the video (the rural white constituency was critical to his victory). Loneliness doesn’t help: Fetterman lives alone in Washington, returning to his wife Gisele and three teenage children in Braddock, Pennsylvania (a four-hour drive) over the weekend.
It’s no longer 1972 when Senator Thomas Eagleton, elected running mate by George McGovern for the presidency, was forced to retire after it was revealed he had been hospitalized with depression ten years earlier (but even then he was re-elected). the Senate).
Many war veterans are living with PTSD, and some are in Congress. Two MPs, Minnesota’s Tina Smith and New York’s Richie Torres, announced yesterday they were hospitalized for depression before being elected: “Millions of Americans support you, Senator.” But the debate on social media and on TV is brutal. Even Gisele Fetterman, who was targeted by the right as a child as an illegal immigrant from Brazil, is paying the price: Fox News compares her to Lady Macbeth: “She used her ailing husband as a vehicle to achieve her ambitions”.