From the article:
The liberal comedian then asked Fetterman whether his shift in various policies had anything to do with his recovery from his 2022 stroke, asking if his near-death experience had given him a “freedom.”
“Absolutely,” Fetterman responded. “There’s a line from the first ‘Batman,’ Joker’s like ‘I’ve been dead once already. It’s very liberating.'”
“It’s freeing in a way. And I just think after beating all of that, I just really [want to] be able to say the things that I have to really believe in and not be afraid of if there’s any kind of blowback.”
So basically yes, the stroke made him a Republican. Pathetic and disappointing, but all too predictable.
i can’t imagine anything more embarrassing than someone who seems to hold political views opposite mine having a stroke and suffering brain damage, only to come out the other end saying now with this freshly scrambled brain he thinks that I’m right.
it’s a lucky coincidence that conservatives don’t have to go through that because they have no shame.
It’s money. Yes to brain damage, but also… Yes to money. It corrupts people. It fucks them up. This guy didn’t have much money, go watch the housing show he was on. I bet not many know about that…
I am unable to find even a hint of what you’re talking about about. It’s not mentioned on his wiki page, and Google is useless as per usual these days
Google told me he was on a show called Where We Call Home. Specifically on the 8th episode of the 1st season.
I have personally worked with Fetterman a number of times while I was working for Allegheny county. He had some moderate stances on things like Israeli support, but not like this. Also, he spent his entire time as mayor of Braddock pushing a lot of very progressive things. He actively turned down opportunities to not be living in his office, and get highly paid, in order to fight a large amount of resistance he faced, even among the people he directly worked with in Braddock. He had a provable, positive, long term, impact on Braddock. He demonstrated that a lot of progressive ideas works, because Braddock implemented them, and it worked. This had a impact on how Pittsburgh, and Allegheny county in general, looked at the future, and how to best design it.
He has demonstrated he is staunchly pro-labor and, in the past, has demonstrated so via sacrificing political payola to do that, among many other progressive things. So I am very conflicted at this serious increase in, what was previously a relatively moderate, stance on Israel. I have to wonder if it was the stroke, or did he strike a deal with AIPAC.
I think most people that were adults when 9/11 happened dont expect peace to ever be possible between the arabs and the west, and see hamas and all the other extremists as suicidially determined genocidal crusaders.
Especially so since Hamas knew they had no chance of winning any conflict they started with the Oct 7th attack but did it anyway, and maintain popular support in gaza even now.
It’s not that older Americans necessarily want to see Palestinians slaughtered but don’t see any peaceful alternative to ending the conflict, and see it more as a ‘fuck around and find out’ situation, so long as Israel doesnt start putting people in ovens (for some even if they do).
As an aside, geopolitically, thats kinda the point of (funding and arming and training and informing) Hamas. To make peace impossible, because peace benefits the west.
For the sake of spreading their ideology and increasing their support, their backers want a forever war.
I was an adult when 9/11 happened. From my personal experience it didn’t push people to believe this. It simply drew those thoughts out of them. I didn’t know a single person who decided to hate muslims when it happened, those people already hated people who look different, and have different cultures/religions. 9/11 just gave them an opportunity to run their mouths about their bigotry. Also, everything you just said about peace among arabs has also been applied to africans, and was also said about europe until after WW2, regardless of their culture/religion, and was a common line of BS well before it.
The only thing it may have done is make previously ignorant bigots aware of arabs. The one thing I have noticed that changed, is knowledge of just how much “the west” has intentionally done to destabilize anyone who wont bend to their economic empires, has become mainstream. People living in the west are far less generously minded about their own countries’ current affairs, and histories, than they were 30 years ago. It has actually become a societal issue, in that a significant portion of the population just can’t handle how shitty the reality of their birth place is, and is now one of the major talking points of the alt-right. Backlash to this has also been a growing sentiment to more than just the far right too.
europeans vs arabs is an old, old, thing. The talking points of how the arab world can never know peace is just as old.
Yeah I remember when it happened. I was watching the news but at the same time checking the internet forums (where I actually heard about the first plane), and things there were not nearly so rah rah who dares attack.
Sure folks were scared but even on the DAY OF the towers coming down people were dropping facts about how, yeah terrorism is bad, but this is a direct consequence of the we in the West fucking with the middle east.
So I don’t think age is an excuse. It was pretty pretty clear from the start who was cool to getting woke about the reasons behind the attacks and who was a reactionary chud looking for a Desert Storm sequel.
Yup, everyone I know but “that one uncle” was like, well it was gonna happen some time, didn’t expect it to be that big, but something bad was going to happen.
They shut down the city. I was in downtown and I was sitting on top of my car watching a combination of police, and national guard, evacuate everyone, as one of the potential targets of flight 93 was downtown. Military flying over head, M939s carrying in national guard, and carrying out civilians, alarms and and emergency broadcasts being broadcast over loud speaker I never even noticed existed before. It was kinda crazy.
It was crazy yeah.
As an aside, I think some people have been trying to recapture that momentary sense of purpose and mobilisation ever since. Like we’re doing something together against a threat! We’re united! Things are happening!
If that impulse would only be directed in a constructive direction…
Yeah, they have been stoking that fire since I was born. Moral panic, after moral panic, all with the underlying foundation being that the people doing these things aren’t good, god fearing, christian, white, conservatives. I think the current level of this, anti-trans for example, have gotten this big due to decades of work on the part of those pushing these moral panics through mainstream media venues. People like Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O-Reilly, Tucker Carlson, to really shake up the dynamics, since it is the 2000s, Ann Coulter. Now that we are in the internet era, Alex Jones, Mike Knowles, Ben Shapiro, Lauren southern, Hanna Davis, Tomi Lahren (wow several women now) and for a really modern look, a dash of color, Candice Owens.
My adult child was a child during 911. At least once parent held some support for some Arabs they considered as friends, who decided to return to their home nation, because of the absolute vitriol spread by the W administration. When tfg became a candidate, suddenly everyone who uttered any sort of disagreement with their opinion became a Muslim. Now their candidate’s lies have landed them in legal hot water, anyone who disagrees must be “Do---- T----”.
But I’ll bet my last dollar since Haley (also a horrible candidate)dropped out and endorsed tfg, they will vote for tfg, and whatever his favorite target du jour is will become their favorite projection.
Ok. What if I break into your house, lock you up in the toilet and regularly beat you and your family up? Worse, the Police is actively supporting it. Would you fight back any way you can? Would your actions be called “terrorism” or “extremism”? Would you not fight back even when you know the odds are against you? Fuck off, Zionist.
Yeah no dont try to make hamas seem noble. The reason even egypt and jordan and Lebanon wont take palestinian refugees is because hamas are such rabid dogs no one in their right mind would be their neighbor, because theyre happy to drag everyone down with them on their stupid crusade and use innocents as shields.
If hamas didn’t exist, in your metaphor, you could simply just leave the house.
wont take palestinian refugees is because theyre such rabid dogs
Calling an entire people “rabid dogs” definitely tells me this is totally not fueled by racism of any kind and that you’re definitely on the right side of history
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The answer is Israel leaves and goes back to make a state in Germany where it should have been made in the first place.
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It’s pretty crazy how Hamas has demonstrably agreed to a ceasefire multiple times, israel rejects it, and we still have people whining about how Hamas doesn’t want peace.
Ahh Bill Maher is not a liberal comedian. He’s really not either of these things.
His jokes and his ideas suck
I told my inlaws about that “it takes brain damage to be a republican”
Then proceeded to ask would they vote for him now that you agree with his positions. Both of them said no “because he’s a democrat”
Of course they wouldn’t vote for him. It’s like a sports game to many Republican voters where they just vote for their team regardless of their position.
I’d bet that if a literal socialist ran for office as a Republican, many Republican voters would be on board.
I’d bet that if a literal socialist ran for office as a Republican, many Republican voters would be on board.
Check this out: https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/09/17/aria-dimezzo-sheriff/
Lmao. She unfortunately didn’t win, though.
Distrust runs deeper than reason. I’ve experienced this with my political preferences too
“Republican plays the game in a liberal area then drops the act once he ‘makes it’”
What has he done that’s Republican?
AIPAC is primarily funded by Republicans.
AIPAC Democrats are just bribed Republicans.
This just in: Brain damage leads to conservative values. Conservative votes still matter as much or more than yours. More at 11.
it’s usually simpler than that. conservatives pay more than liberals.
i know a few leftists who have now gone hard right… because they got paid more to spout conservative conspiracy nonsense than they did liberal/socialist stuff.
It must be so easy to grift money out of conservatives. Just spout some conspiracy theory about how ‘they’ are actually behind the bad things in the world and watch the money pour in, regardless of how little sense it makes.
I’ve semi-seriously considered asking my wife if we should start selling Trump /F-biden etc merchandise on etsy. I feel like we could be making huge profits on stuff we cobble together from the clearance rack at the craft store and a tiny bit of elbow grease. A little red white and blue, some aged (or faux aged) wood, maybe a little cowboy hat, the word Trump…
Just throw a little of the profits to some progressive candidate.
In line with this, there’s also an immense left-to-far-right pipeline in media simply because the left will hold you accountable even if you agree with them but the right doesn’t give a fuck as long as you say the thing.
I listened to a podcast about one such author. I forget what about but she wrote a book based on IIRC a flawed interpretation of whatever subject leading the whole thing to be basically wrong.
People pointed out it wrong, sales plummet, author gets butthurt and defensive, now they’re playing the antivax circuit I believe it was.
(Sorry, the podcast was background noise for powerwash simulator so I don’t remember specifics lol)
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)?
That’s it. Naomi Klein was on the Factually podcast by Adam Conover and she gets mistaken for Naomi Wolf CONSTANTLY, and wrote a book based off of the rabbit hole she went down when she looked into “other Naomi.” I was able to hone in on the episode too if anybody wants it - The main theme of the episode is how smart people become conspiracy theorists, hence the relevance of the Naomi Wolf confusion.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0B6sLOKXrwDJPxhEjzHyRC?si=862d3c203a644fb0
Read her Wikipedia article. It’s interesting, especially this part:
Sarah Ditum wrote in the New Statesman, "Perhaps it’s not that Wolf is a feminist who’s degenerated into conspiracism, but instead that she’s a conspiracy theorist who happened to fall into feminism first.
I like that this implies the left just don’t give enough fucks to bother to pay or even fight for their values which is what is hinted at in these articles. They’re limp dicks and somehow always proud of it. I agree with the headline that people who lean left don’t have any fight in them to pull together and actually rally like they do on the right. Seen many people on the left go to stand up for some values and get destroyed. The left can’t muster anything more than “har har the right are stupid dumb dumbs” as every single person has watched the left choke for over a decade and lose tremendous ground on all their issues while the right votes in assholes like Trump who they only like because you all hate him so much.
Its as if the left has zero concept of what a leader does socially because they all stand by as right wing snipers continue to pick off every single one of them. And each time its a loud signal to never stand up for left values publicly or you risk massive harassment from both the left and the right.
Here is the trick, the left isn’t a block of anything or anyone. There is no leader bc there is no group, no cohesion bc it’s not what makes people want to be leftists.
https://www.reddit.com/r/alberta/comments/1dddsf5/alberta_mla_shannon_phillips_quits_citing/
And that’s fine if you never want to accomplish anything and lose ground every day. You can’t keep calling them all dumber when they’re winning ground and power everyday.
Follow the $$$$$.
???
“There’s a line from the first ‘Batman,’ Joker’s like ‘I’ve been dead once already. It’s very liberating.'”
You… you get that the Joker was the bad guy right? Who went on to kill a bunch of people? I guess it makes sense that this is your reasoning for becoming a republican but what a weird quote choice.
Dude didn’t even pick a quote from the 1 movie that attempts to cast the Joker as a sympathetic character. I swear…
ah yes, “You ever dance with the devil in the pale moon light?”
Nothing at all unique or special about him, he is and always was a typical politician playing his “constituents” for rubes and apparently succeeding
Other than his psychotically unwavering support of Israel what Republican positions has he taken up?
He’s got some strange agriculture sponsored bills, banning oil sales from the strategic reserve, but most of his sponsored bills are aimed at helping low income people stay in housing, some pro union stuff, and a bit of fuckcars. He literally sponsored a bill to cancel school meal debt at the federal level. Not sure why he’s getting blasted here as a Republican other than idiocy that he’s not a AOC clone by the “Palestine became my only issue in the last 5 months” folks.
A bill to amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to ensure that striking workers and their households do not become ineligible for benefits under the supplemental nutrition assistance program, and for other purposes.
Yea… Real Republican stance. /s
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=456877
That’s it? I’m reading this comment section for 5 minutes trying to find what right-wing things he’s done that are making everyone so upset, and it’s all just piling on with everyone nodding to each other about how bad he is. Comments like “the stroke should have killed him.” Weird.
This is how it goes. The second a politician shows even a fraction less than 100% commitment to the party line, people turn on them. Politics is all black and white and it’s insane. There’s no middle ground.
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Insert “leftists are not liberals” meme
Fetterman is truly for the left, he stands for the working class against the wealthy.
Everything else is a distraction, and he realizes this fact. We need more lawmakers like him, not noisemakers like AOC going off about the unimportant issue of the week.
Seize back control our society from the rich and everything else will follow.
I guess his refusal to wear a suit while on the house floor could fall into the “fuck your feelings” category.
not gonna lie, i kinda just straight up forgot about his ass.
Unfortunately now i have to remember that he’s alive. Maybe that stroke should’ve taken him out of service…
I live in Pa and keep forgetting about him until he pops up in the news. Then I’m reminded that he is the biggest disappointment I’ve experienced in politics. I almost feel like my vote was wasted. Hopefully he at least keeps reproductive rights a thing in this state. I cannot function without my bc because it keeps my endometriosis at bay.
Disappointing but still better than Dr. Oz. Fetterman didn’t change all his positions. He still wants to do things like expand voting rights, supports health care expansion, abortion rights, etc.
He’s not actually a republican, he’s trying to thread the needle to not alienate too many dems while appealing to rural voters, blue collar men, and willing to adopt shitty positions on things like immigration to do so.
yeah, unfortunately he’s a senator so 6 year terms, but you can oust the fucker as soon as that happens, thankfully.
I swear to God if he’s still the best option in 6 years…
there’s no way. Someone will capitalize on it.
Still beats Dr. Oz, but sucks he decided to become more of an asshole.
The only way that he beats Oz is that he caucuses with the Democrats. And I HATE when games make me do stupid things because of their dumb mechanics.
Good metaphor, and I agree. But I’m practical above all else, so votes blue no matter who.
It’s nice when there are two Democrats running here in California so I can actually vote based on policy instead of party affiliation.
As someone who owned a “Kucinich for President” bumper sticker I’ve given up hope of ever voting for someone I actually like in a general election.
Yeah, first past the post means unless you’re a die-hard neoliberal you’re not getting who you want and just have to do damage control.
I don’t think I’d be happy in a ranked-choice system. Representation seems like a pretty bad implementation of a consensus algorithm.
What’s your preferred alternative?
Direct democracy would be my most preferred method. But that has scaling issues.
Was this stroke before or after that whole dress code thing? I remember his antics being amusing when they wanted to do away with the dress code rule that was never technically written down anywhere and he shows up in shorts and they immediately change their minds and codified it.
This is beyond disappointing.
This was actively campaigning, taking money as, and presenting oneself as a progressive.
This goes way beyond disappointed.
This made me smile.
Edit: your comment made me smile. The way it is phrased, each sentence begins with “This”. That’s why my comment started with “This”…
Without the clarification in your edit, I can see why you got downvoted lol
Yeah, it dawned on me after the first downvotes.
Is this another Joker quote?
