A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

But first, here’s Abby Livingston…

Now, on to the main event…

Still reeling from Donald Trump’s win in
November, Democrats seemed entirely flat-footed during the first 72 hours of his presidency while a barrage of executive orders vaporized the ancien régime in Washington. Sure, some of this was ostensibly strategic: In recent weeks, multiple Democratic leaders have expressed their intent to lie low and keep their powder dry until public sentiment inevitably turns. But it’s been impossible to ignore the glaring absence of any sort of Democratic standard-bearer, or even a
would-be standard-bearer, to bring the fight to Trump and the Republican Congress. A rope-a-dope strategy works only if the fighter has a knock-out punch ready to throw in a later round.

Also noticeably missing in response to Trump’s blitzkrieg—pardoning the January 6 rioters, requiring federal workers to snitch on colleagues practicing D.E.I., attempting to rewrite the 14th Amendment by fiat—has
been anything resembling Nancy Pelosi’s rousing “Hell no!” rallying cry for Democrats. But really, who’s left to unite them? Not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is popular with the base but doesn’t score highly with the swing voters who delivered the election to Trump. Nor Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who are busy licking their wounds, organizing the caucuses in their respective congressional chambers, and trying to cheer up
dejected donors. “They seem leaderless,” remarked a G.O.P. strategist, somewhat stating the obvious. “It’s a void from an inspirational perspective. I think part of the calculation is to be a constructive partner [to Trump] when they can, and take a stand when they can’t, but they don’t have a messenger yet.” 

Parties inevitably experience this sort of identity crisis. The Republicans had the rudderless blues after
Barack Obama won his power trifecta in 2008. The Democrats were in a similar spot four years earlier, after they were unable to vanquish a deeply weakened George W. Bush—a vacuum that inevitably paved the way for Obama’s ascent. “Leaders are made at this time,” said another Republican strategist. Democrats “need a young firebrand to make the case that Trump is with the billionaires, not with you.” 

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

But, of course, it’s often impossible to predict in the moment
how the pendulum of public opinion will swing. In 2004, Democrats assumed they’d need a down-home, beer-swilling rancher type; instead they found success with a former community organizer from Chicago. After Obama, Reince Priebus’s R.N.C. composed its infamous Growth & Opportunity Project, a.k.a. the autopsy, which called for a more compassionate party that connected with Hispanic voters and narrowed its messaging on immigration policy. Instead, of course, the moment
was seized by Trump. 

With Americans burned out, craving authenticity, and tired of conventions, institutions, and norms, some Democrats and Republicans have been nodding toward Senator John Fetterman as the sort of unconventional, party-line-scrambling politician who could fill a leadership void without really trying. With his working-class appeal, tattoos, and habit of
showing up to the Senate in shorts and hoodies, Fetterman oozes a kind of Rogan-esque unpredictable authenticity that his peers have struggled to capture. 

Fetterman is increasingly polarizing for all the same reasons. He’s pissed off the left with his aggressively pro-Israel rhetoric; he co-sponsored the Laken Riley Act, giving vulnerable Democrats cover on the immigration issue; and
he recently visited Mar-a-Lago even as he’s criticized Trump on CNN, declaring: “It doesn’t make you a man to pick on trans or gay kids. It just makes you an asshole.” Earlier this week, he shot down rumors that he might switch parties, calling the speculation “amateur hour shit.”

Indeed, he seems happy to pick fights with virtually anyone, especially those in his own party. He called congressional Democrats “spineless” for not standing behind Joe Biden after the former president tanked in last summer’s debate, and called the hush-money case against Trump “bullshit.” He also pushed back on Kamala Harris’s claim that Trump was a fascist. Indeed, he evinces the same plainspokenness that, for a time, made Biden popular
in his party. “Trump is a ‘tell it like it is’ person and so is Fetterman,” said a former D.N.C. operative. “You may not like it, you may not like how he says it, or what he says, but he’s making some noise just to do it. And he’s not afraid of being canceled.” 

Obviously, a confluence of issues prevents Fetterman from
emerging out of the party’s ashes as a spokesman. His maverick authenticity is double-edged: He’s not a party man. The Democratic base views him with suspicion and still craves a hardy resistance movement, for which he is very clearly not the guy. But interest in Fetterman, as an experiment in alternate models for the party, has undeniably grown since the election.

A source close to Schumer and
Jeffries pushed back on the notion that the party is in the market for a singular messenger. Instead, this person said, Democrats are banking on a team of warriors—akin to the leaderless #Resistance-fueled wave that retook the House in the 2018 midterms, or the cohort that withstood an expected shellacking in 2022, post-Dobbs. They’re also counting on Trump’s inevitable mismanagement of the government and inability to lower inflation to drive voters back into their arms. “It’s
hard to be heard right now during the president’s next 100 days,” the Democratic leadership source said. “Trump is going to get his runway, but it’s not going to last long. He doesn’t seem to be laser-focused on lowering costs or doing anything economically.”

Still, with so much noise around Trump, wouldn’t it be easier to break through with one messenger who appeals to the voters that Democrats lost? A former
D.N.C. operative told me that Fetterman’s “center-left” messaging stands a good chance of attracting independent voters. “It’s what appeals to most of the country, who don’t actually give a shit about politics, right?” the operative said. “Fetterman’s not talking about stupid Bernie woke-left shit that cost us the fucking election.”