From the perspective of his supporters, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman entered Congress as a staunch progressive. He curried the endorsement of one of the leaders of the contemporary progressive movement, Senator Bernie Sanders, and stacked his own staff with former Bernie aides. Fetterman also championed progressive causes, including shifts toward renewable energy, implementing wealth taxes, single-payer health care, and raising the federal minimum wage.
But on Friday, Fetterman officially divorced himself from the progressive movement.
“I’m not a progressive,” Fetterman told NBC News. “I just think I’m a Democrat that is very committed to choice and other things. But with Israel, I’m going to be on the right side of that. And immigration is something near and dear to me, and I think we do have to effectively address it as well.”
The announcement comes after weeks spent disagreeing with other congressional progressives like the Squad over his unwavering support for Israel in its conflict with Hamas and his calls for tougher immigration laws.
But if you asked Fetterman during the campaign season where he stood, his words were more than a little different.
After losing his first Senate run in 2016, Fetterman touted that he had started a progressive movement in the Coal State.
We have started a progressive movement here in Pennsylvania.
— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) April 27, 2016
“It’s not going away. We’re not going away. This isn’t over. This is not how our story ends,” he added in an additional post.
Two years later, Fetterman was still using the label to ask for donations during his run for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania.
“Chip in whatever you can to help us take this progressive momentum all the way to the ballot box on May 15,” Fetterman posted.
Are you kidding me man? pic.twitter.com/gxzXsLPiPo
— isi baehr-breen (isibb.bsky.social) (@isaiah_bb) December 15, 2023
“Progressive. Simple. Sacred. The union way of life,” Fetterman said in another.
“Progressive values have been the heart of my campaign,” Fetterman wrote in a 2018 post aligning himself with Sanders.
And despite emerging rhetoric from the senator claiming that the United States needs harsher immigration reform, one of Fetterman’s recurring campaign mantras on the issue circles back to his wife, who lived in the U.S. “undocumented for years” after escaping violence in Brazil. Time and time again, Fetterman has insisted that “immigration makes America, America.”