John Fetterman did something at Tuesday's State of the Union that apparently no other Democrat could bring himself to do: He shook the president's hand. That's it. That's the whole scandal, as far as the left is concerned. It was enough to set social media buzzing all over again about a question that just keeps coming back. Could John Fetterman actually be on his way out of the Democratic Party?
While more than 70 Democrats boycotted the address, most attended, but still couldn’t act like adults. They shouted from their seats, and pinned protest buttons to their lapels. Rep. Al Green got himself ejected (for the second year in a row) for holding up a sign. Fetterman was the lone adult Democrat in the room. He clapped when he agreed with something, and extended basic human courtesy to the president of the United States.
“You don’t have to agree with everything. You can be in a different party… I think it’s just basic respect and courtesy,” he explained to CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Wednesday. He warned against turning major national events into spectacle. He recalled when, in 2009, former Rep. Joe Wilson shouted at Barack Obama during a speech to a joint session of Congress, and how shocking it was because it was seen as lacking decorum. Now Democrats have taken it to a much higher level of disrespect, and Fetterman isn’t happy about it. “I can’t think we can get to the place where… the State of the Union can’t turn into like the Springer show.”
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And when the outrage machine fired up on the left over his handshake, Fetterman didn't flinch. "If someone's angry that I shook the president's hand as he walked in? You know, that's on them,” he said.
That kind of talk has naturally reignited the perennial question: Is Fetterman about to switch parties?
The short answer is “No.” The longer answer is “Heck no,” but people still ask and speculate.
Hunt even brought this up in her interview.
“And you still fully intend to continue to be part of the Democratic Party, no matter what?” she asked.
“We've talked about this,” he said.
“I know we have,” she agreed.
“It's like the numbers bear it out. I vote in the 90 percents, you know, of that. I mean, you can look it up. It's a fact. I'm not changing the party.”
He added, “And I might clap for some things that I agree, but, you know, when you represent Pennsylvania, that's there. It's like, hey, we would all love like a, like a, a blue state, you know, then you can really just have to talk to one side. But for me, it's a — it's a special responsibility if you represent Pennsylvania that, you know, we have to find a way forward.”
That’s a rather long way of saying he recognizes that Pennsylvania is a swing state, and he can’t just be a rubber stamp for the Democratic Party.
For sure, that modest level of independence has cost him with Democratic voters. Democrats disapprove of the job he’s doing 62% to 22%, while Republicans approve of him 73% to 18%. Pennsylvania Democrats are reportedly already plotting a primary challenge against him even though he doesn't face reelection until 2028.
Republicans would certainly welcome a high-profile party switch. It would be a clean narrative win. But Fetterman has made clear that's not happening. Clapping at a State of the Union and refusing to call your political opponents fascists doesn't make you a Republican — it used to make you a normal adult. The fact that it now makes you a pariah in the Democratic Party says far more about where that party has gone than it does about John Fetterman.
