r/politics • u/thedailybeast ✔ The Daily Beast • 6h ago
Possible Paywall Fetterman’s Secret MAGA Cash Grab Exposed in Leaked Message
https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-fettermans-maga-cash-grab-exposed-in-leaked-message/•
u/BluWake Michigan 6h ago
We need a process to recall elected officials for switching parties.
Also, why does it seem like only the GOP plays this game of running shadow candidates?
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u/B-Z_B-S Massachusetts 6h ago edited 6h ago
It works better for parties that have a lot of sociopaths in them. Same reason Graham Platner ended his campaign and Max Miller...didn't. The members of the GOP are inherently less moral than members of the Democratic Party.
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u/DMVSPIRITS 6h ago
max miller the one who put a gun to his wife’s head?
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u/poopsididitagen 5h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MKE_Freak 5h ago
Broke her bones too no?
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u/more_housing_co-ops 4h ago
First seven words of Miller's website byline:
MAX MILLER HAS A RECORD OF FIGHTING
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u/CraigKostelecky 4h ago
The more I hear about this guy... the less I like him.
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u/davidkali 4h ago
So he’s got your vote?
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u/DontAskAboutMyButt 4h ago
I mean, we’ve gotta do SOMETHING to stop people getting elected who would do things that help me personally. I HATE it when politicians do good things that will improve my quality of life
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u/VerboseWarrior Foreign 3h ago
I wasn't sure before, but that's a strong argument to break down anyone's doubts.
He is obviously a family man, with strong family values, a perfect candidate for the party of family values.
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u/HammyJWill 5h ago
Max Miller did NOT do that. He was training to be a ninja to fight off ANTIFA warriors. During a moment of training, his Ultra Instinct was primed and his daughter walked into his "Absolute Terror" radius. He struck out on instinct (as all warriors are apt to do), sending all his chakra and a fully powered chidori into her neck. It was a tragic accident and that's why Max Miller has not dropped out of the race.
Also his wife had an alien in her mind he was trying to scare away, it worked.
- The GOP
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u/Tsar-A-Lago Canada 4h ago
"Well, alien possession, that kind of explains the last of it! Understandable"
cachunk of R lever
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u/BeOddArt 5h ago
Source for this? I’ve seen about the hurling boiling water and being violent, but haven’t heard about the gun to the head and throwing his daughter against a wall…
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u/felldestroyed 5h ago
It's in the divorce documents. It's likely why his daughter's collarbone was broken.
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u/DMVSPIRITS 5h ago edited 5h ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/us/politics/max-miller-ohio-republican.html
P4 “Mr. Miller has denied the accusations, which include holding a gun to his ex-wife’s head, throwing scalding water at her and fracturing the collarbone of their daughter.
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u/decoy321 5h ago
The first sentence:
Ohio Rep. Max Miller allegedly held a gun to his ex-wife’s head and threatened Sen. Bernie Moreno, his former father-in-law and a fellow Ohio Republican, according to court filings from former wife Emily Moreno, police reports and transcripts of Emily’s testimony.
Further down
Emily, 32, further alleged Miller grabbed her on Feb. 1, “threw her against the wall” and left her with “an obvious grab mark on her upper arm and bruising to her stomach” while their daughter looked on.
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u/mahlongrows 5h ago
He has declined all allegations of wrongdoing, which include pouring hot water on his ex-wife, holding a gun to her head and breaking his daughter’s collarbone.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/08/04/congress/max-miller-daughter-abuse-image-01023575
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u/an_agreeing_dothraki 5h ago
every time he's mentioned my brain has a moment because "hard tack boy would never do that"
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u/almightywhacko 5h ago
I'd argue that Democratic voters are more moral than Republican voters. The reason Platner ended his campaign is because voters turned on him and he realized his chances at being elected were almost gone.
By comparison Republican voters in some areas will reliably re-elect the same guy who had 3 sex scandals, an assault charge, and been the target of multiple corruption lawsuits in his previous term just because he's not a Democrat.
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u/Tasgall Washington 5h ago
just because he's not a Democrat
More than that, I think - they've convinced themselves that every accusation of sexual impropriety is falsified "for clout", and that every fraud case against a Republican is a "witch hunt". Violent behavior? Fake news.
At this point, they're willfully stupid and deliberately evil.
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u/Abaddon33 Georgia 4h ago
I think it's more that they're conditioned by their propaganda machine to believe that Democrats are worse no matter what, so when they hear that a conservative did something awful, their brain subconsciously jumps to, "Oh my God, how bad are the liberals if they're even worse than this!"
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u/sagmag 4h ago
There was some study that concluded that, in general, republican voters tend to assign morality to a person, while democrats tend to assign morality to an action.
"If a good person does it it's ok" allows republicans to forgive all kinds of sins from someone "in their group" while democrats will cut ties with one of their own if they do something that is deemed immoral.
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u/Emotional-Expert-142 5h ago
And these are the same high ground Christian right voters. Supposedly cut from a different cloth, morally supreme.
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u/Useless 5h ago
There's a mentality that goes "What we did may be bad, but what they'll do is worse, so we'll tolerate bad behavior." And then, the bad behavior normalizes and people like Trump get put in charge.
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u/Maardten 4h ago
A while back there were pictures going around of students in tent encampments in my country (The Netherlands) because of a lack of housing.
Someone commented: 'this is what communism would look like!'
And I'm like: You mean this picture of a situation that is currently happening under capitalism?
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u/Emotional-Expert-142 5h ago
Correct. The lesser of two evils in their eyes.. they will always feel justified and always find the applicable Bible verse.
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u/AwsmDevil 5h ago
"I only choose the lesser of two evils since politics is inherently bad and you need strong people to fight for you."
Actively votes for the greater evil that regularly fucks them over while they bask in their own ignorant smugness and cry about declining society.
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u/Beelzebeetus 5h ago
When their cult members do bad things they're "not real Christians"
But I'm not seeing any excommunications over this shit.
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u/micro102 4h ago
You are really underselling what Republicans will vote for. They will vote for international child trafficking cabals, a gestapo executing people in the street, widespread disease, global food/energy shortages, etc.
It's hard to get more evil than this.
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u/GuitarGeezer 5h ago
Because they are allowed to by conservatives. Many are just default conservatives who are functioning but political illiterates. They never had any actual homegrown values that they thought about and so they never enforce any of the slogans they yell against their own. Common clay in Diddly Squat AR or in upstate NY don’t know that the word dictator is not dog or dictionary. Their lack of capacity is legit that low and they call moderate Republicans communersts. Actual spelling from a guy yesterday on FB. Im a centrist independent willing to vote for any party that will criminalize bribery and hyperpartisan media again but that apparently means I have magical powers because I am a librel sorcerist. Words mean nothing, you cannot argue with that.
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u/RaindropBebop 3h ago
The members of the GOP are inherently less moral than members of the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, in Russia-botted ML/tankie-sympathizing subs across reddit: "both parties are the same", "Dems are controlled opposition and are just as bad as Republicans", "Trump is doing exactly what Kamala Harris would've done".
So frustrating.
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u/DiceMadeOfCheese 6h ago
This guy will be an argument for recall mechanisms for decades to come.
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u/thedarkestblood 5h ago
Krysten Sinema breathing a huge sigh of relief
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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 5h ago edited 54m ago
Seriously, Fetterman has made everyone forget about the OG party defector. And she was still worse than Fetterman
EDIT: I was wrong, Sinema is not the OG, but both are just the latest in a long line of dem defectors
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u/robodrew Arizona 4h ago
I still haven't forgotten how she betrayed my multiple votes for her.
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u/Tasgall Washington 4h ago
the OG party defector
Joe Lieberman?
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u/alabasterskim 3h ago
If there's ever been a silver lining that Al Gore lost in 2000, it's that Joe Lieberman never got to be Vice President.
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u/ThePortalsOfFrenzy 5h ago
She's in the midst of her own issues now. Her boyfriend/affair partner's wife is suing her for home wreckingw hich is a thing in North Carolina.
In another article I didn't bother to look for now, I saw that Sinema is suing her bf because he rampaged at her house and destroyed stuff. Including expensive artwork that investigations are now looking into, to see if the famously not-wealthy former politician illegally used campaign contributions for such items.
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u/Mmaibl1 6h ago
That should honestly be immediate termination. You got elected based on ideals that you believe in. If you switch sides and support different paths from what you were elected for, you are no longer speaking for the people
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u/nickcash 5h ago
I dunno. Carter ran for governor on a pro-segregation platform then immediately turned against it once elected.
Though on the other hand, this is the only positive example I can think of.
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u/Tea_Alarmed 5h ago edited 5h ago
It should be akin to Perjury
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u/StunningCloud9184 5h ago
yea if lifetime supreme court members can do it then elected officials arent even close to be held accountable
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u/discodropper New York 5h ago
Only exception I can see is if the party radically changes while the person is in office. Compare people like John McCain during Trump’s first term. If he had switched parties (or declared himself an independent), recalling him wouldn’t have made a ton of sense. At least not without a snap election…
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u/BuckyJackson36 5h ago
You kinda hit the nail on the head while skirting the issue. There should only be one side in the US, the side of the American people. The division we have that clearly delineates two sides is getting worse. For example, RBG got 96 confirmation votes for SCOTUS in 1993. Could that happen today? 'Sides' are very much a real thing.
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u/kstargate-425 6h ago
There needs to be a no confidence recall vote for everything like real democracies have to ensure there are near real time consequences
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u/PhroneticReflex 5h ago
There needs to be a lot of things like real democracies have.
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u/Best-Action8769 5h ago
What we need is snap elections.
When congress becomes useless they all get fired and we get to re-vote all of them in.
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u/ddark4 6h ago
They literally redirected money from their own candidates and used it to fund and boost an entire slate of third party candidates in my state one cycle just to siphon votes away from Dems because they knew they couldn’t win on the issues.
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u/aguynamedv 5h ago
In Minnesota, they ran third-party "pro-marijuana" candidates in order to split the vote who were later confirmed to be aligned Republicans.
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u/Unique-Coffee5087 5h ago
Huh. That's a tactic used by Viktor Orban. His party helped fund a bunch of opposition parties in Hungary, Balkanizing the opposition vote into small factions that were of little consequence.
The Republicans and their allies also do this here by fomenting division among liberals through our various pet issues. Thus we have potential Democratic voters sitting out elections because Biden didn't give them a pony for Christmas.
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u/lace_chaps 4h ago
Orban used the same political strategist, Arthur Finkelstein.
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u/Unique-Coffee5087 3h ago
Goddammit.
The Republicans had become so degraded and un-American that they fully admire Victor Orban and take their lessons from him.
I can never understand that. As a child I had been thoroughly indoctrinated to admire and adhere to foundational American political values. Such lessons had been given in my early schooling, and reinforced in popular culture and media through my entire life. And somehow Republicans grew up in the same country as I did, went to the same schools that I did, watched the same movies that I did, but embrace the values of our enemies.
Did they all go to Nazi summer camp or something? I really cannot understand it at all!
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u/StunningCloud9184 5h ago
One time they ran a candidate with the exact same name as the dem candidate in 3rd party to confuse voters
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u/Worthyness 5h ago
I think this is happening in Alaska right now, except its two republicans running against each other
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u/AmazingRefrigerator4 6h ago
There is more money in the GOP ecosystem.
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u/StunningCloud9184 5h ago
When your whole parties whole point is to get rich people more money you can see why they do that.
Dems used to have the union as the bank but theyre culturally maga now and dont give as much
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u/justuntlsundown West Virginia 5h ago
The union thing is so wild. Actively voting for the party that does everything they can to cripple unions.
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u/StunningCloud9184 5h ago
Its like immigrants voting for the anti immigrant group. The fuck you I got mine energy.
And then deer in headlights when it turns out you can be fucked over too.
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u/justuntlsundown West Virginia 5h ago edited 5h ago
I'm actually in a union and went to a meeting one time where we were trying figure what we could to stop our employer from making changes to the pension plan the older workers have. I don't have a pension. I started working there too late, but I try to support as much as I can regardless. Somebody asked what we could do to stop the company from trying to do things like this in the future. The person from the union said "Vote for Democrats". Everyone just looked dumbfounded or appalled.
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u/StunningCloud9184 5h ago
Its crazy. And its so simple. Trump has never done anything to help the union except in a scratch my back I’ll scratch yours. Meanwhile biden was pro union his whole life and even bailed out union pensions that were mismanaged.
All to get 51% union vote. And since that include teachers union that votes 80-90% union it means that the rest are real red.
Haha should have yelled “what pension?!”
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u/RobertBevillReddit 5h ago
We need more Jimmy Carters. He ran a racist campaign for governor of Georgia, only to get elected and go “psych! I’m a liberal!”
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u/JMCatron 4h ago
i'm so sorry to correct you but the plural of jimmy carter is actually "Jimmies Carter"
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u/TaterForming 5h ago
I used to joke in the GWB days that I could EASILY get the republican vote because I was raised by them.
Get your feels over reals pastor vibes and you have a very good shot so long as you're up to date on their dog whistles (and now bullhorns).
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u/juliuspepperwoodchi 4h ago
Do we? We're electing the person, not the party.
Vote accordingly. Fetterman was a known commodity before he ran, people just ignored it because (D)
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u/gizzardgullet Michigan 6h ago
why does it seem like only the GOP plays this game of running shadow candidates?
I'll bet there are some running right now as Democrats for 2026
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u/StunningCloud9184 5h ago
For sure. And if not there will be some open to flip once they see the $$$$.
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u/Hawgdestroyerxtreme 3h ago
Also, why does it seem like only the GOP plays this game of running shadow candidates?
GOP just does all of this shit (Except the actual job of governing for the betterment of the country) better. They control narratives better, they put their money in places where it goes further for them (While having more of it). They have more effective (albeit evil) attorneys and legal scholars. They have more plentiful and more effective think tanks that craft their policy and lobby behind the scenes to get cuckolds like Sinema and Fetterman to switch up on the people that elected them.
America could have been a literal utopia if these people put this amount of effort and focus into the betterment of our country instead of whatever the fuck this is.
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u/drdoom52 5h ago
why does it seem like only the GOP plays this game of running shadow candidates?
I'd propose two reasons.
It takes less effort to be a generally decent person. Willingly screwing over everyone else, then going out on a stage and claiming this is actually a good thing takes actual emotional work.
Conservatives more naturally lean towards populism. They are very adept at telling a crowd what they want to hear, and fitting their stance to the popular views. Liberals and progressives take a more humanist view which means sometimes they have to advocate for something unpopular on moral grounds instead if claiming what the crowd wants is moral.
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u/Friendly_Shopping286 3h ago
Didn't he used to be a Democrat until he was brain damaged and then he became a republican?
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u/thewags05 5h ago
It's fairly hard to pretend to be conservative, at least with the current Republican party.
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u/omgwtfbbq0_0 4h ago
I almost feel like it should trigger an automatic recall and special election, but I know all that will do is keep them from officially announcing the switch.
But it’s because to successfully run a shadow campaign you have to have to be a pathological liar with no moral compass or respect for ethics. I’m sure those types exist on the left, but it seems to be a requirement for the GOP/MAGA
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u/luftikuz 5h ago
Ignoring the particular case of Fetterman, I think your suggestion is a terrible idea. You vote a person to be your representative, you don't vote a party. Having this kind of rule binding a person to a party would effectively mean that there are 2 or 3 bosses in Congress and the rest are yes-men which do their bidding. It's the reason why the founding fathers (especially Washington) hated political parties.
We need less powerful parties, not the opposite
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u/QbertsRube 5h ago
You vote for a person and the platform that person claims during their campaign. If they win then change that platform, that seems pretty fraudulent and the voters should some method to correct it other than waiting out their full term.
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u/Pigglebee 5h ago
You often vote a party, not a person. You hope that Fetterman upholds democratic values, not republican. Otherwise you would have voted for the republican candidate. A sudden party switch and I would have felt like my vote was stolen.
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u/CaptainOwlBeard 5h ago
Ok but he's doing the opposite of what he said he'd do. Shouldn't there be some way to address that in real time?
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u/Tasgall Washington 4h ago
It's the reason why the founding fathers (especially Washington) hated political parties.
We need less powerful parties, not the opposite
Yet this fear of parties is what got us here in the first place.
The problem is that because they didn't want parties to be a thing, they just pretended they don't exist and now as a result they're unregulated. If you want parties to have less power you should actually want them to be formally included in the system so that they can actually be managed and regulated. Pretending they don't exist obviously didn't make them go away. And they'll never not be a thing - as long as any two people agree on most issues, you have a political party.
That said, I agree that an automatic recall based on some trigger like party switching is a dumb idea - all they'd have to do to circumvent that is... not change parties. Fetterman could just be a Democrat who caucuses with Republicans, rule subverted. Instead, there needs to be a citizen-engaged petition to trigger a snap election to replace them (recalled until the election result, probably).
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u/Bored_Amalgamation Ohio 5h ago
Removing political power from parties would take a very drastic societal shift in the country. As harmful as it is, there aren't enough people willing to vote 3rd party.
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u/FamiliarRip8558 5h ago
Point me out one country where their recall mechanism is detrimental for simply existing....
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u/porn_sub_lurker 5h ago edited 5h ago
What a weird way to miss the point. The point is to have a recall process for congressmen who need to be recalled. That gives the power back to the people and takes it from the parties, like you're suggesting we need.
Edit: also why are you speaking both german and spanish in your comment history? You really think we're so stupid that we think a fellow American is speaking 3 languages, one of which isn't used here? You're not from here, so why are you saying "we"?
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u/literalyfigurative 6h ago
Fuck that, get rid of parties if we cant have more than two.
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u/Mongoleeto 5h ago
hes not a republican shadow candidate. the stroke gave him brain damage which made him republican
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u/SillyAlternative420 Massachusetts 6h ago
Our politicians no longer fear repercussion.
When they take an oath of office, they serve us, and if they deviate from that there needs to be high punishment.
What are the serious options to fix this?
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u/hsoj48 Missouri 6h ago
How about if you defraud the people, all of your asset accounts will be frozen and distributed to the defrauded constituents plus you can no longer own property in the US?
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u/Devry_Trost 5h ago
The problem with solutions like this isn't the 'unworkable' or 'impractical' excuses that politicians use to not persue them - it's the fact that by human nature such fixes can only be implemented via revolution.
Put this idea before an elected body and each politician will vote against it - either because they are neck-deep in corruption, or because they aren't and fear that the majority who are will use lies and trickery to use 'anti-corruption' measures against those who are actually honest.
Once a body has been established with traditions of corruption, there is no fix for that which comes without a heap of human drama.
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u/brutinator 2h ago
I would argue that theres even a bigger root issue: laws are just words on paper when you have no one to enforce them. Politicians have voted for and implemented laws specifically to address many of the illegal actions that are occuring.... but if the body that actually investigates and prosecutes said crimes chooses to do nothing, well, then what?
For example, the emoluments clause is right there in the constitution specifically banning officeholders from recieiving gifts and benefits from foreign nationals. For example, look at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump, which was dismissed while he was president, appealed, and then SCOTUS re-dismissed it in 2021 because "Trump isnt president anymore". Blumenthal v. Trump was dismissed because members of Congress apparently do not have standing to sue for the president breaking violating the constitution. Or how about when the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, for example, has a $2 million (over £1.5 million) annual lease on one of his Manhattan properties. Throughout 2016-2017, the Saudi Arabian government charged up to $270,000 (approximately £205,000) in rooms at a Trump hotel in Washington D.C.
And thats all just his first term. All explicitly forbidden by the Constitution, which is the bedrock of our entire legal system.
The problem isnt getting the laws passed. The problem is getting them enforced. Even during the American Civil War way back when, they didnt really enforce the laws regarding treason and sedition. Hell, the president of the Confederacy spent his whole life after the war talking about how hed never have surrendered if he knew about the emancipation of black folks, and building the foundation of the Lost Cause propaganda, all without being charged and convicted for high crimes against the United States and being responsible for the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans.
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u/DrowningKrown 4h ago
Okay, so who enforces that? When is this country going to realize that short of getting our asses out on the streets, there will be no consequences.
Our government doesn't care BECAUSE there are no real enforcement mechanisms anymore. We all just sat around and talked about how crazy it is and did nothing else.
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u/therossboss 6h ago
My entire life it has only gotten worse. The term public servant is just a hilarious far off concept now.
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u/justinsayin 4h ago
The mayor of NYC is doing a really good job.
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u/tyrified 3h ago
Baltimore, too! Mayor Scott reallocated 1% of the police budget to pay crime reduction social workers, which has led to a 40% drop in their murder rate the first three years he was in office! In 2026, it is down another 26%! Show me a single "tough on crime" conservative that can show they have been anywhere near as effective. You can't, because they aren't.
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u/fluffy_bunny_87 2h ago
Holy shit that's actually insane and it's sucky that this is the first I am hearing about it. This is legitimately awesome but even for someone that spends a ton of time on Reddit consuming information I hadn't heard of this.
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u/ElleMNOPea 4h ago
Most Federal Employees are trying very hard to do a good job and keep the wheels on government despite this administration. Elected officials ethics have gone to shit (along with the Supreme Court) but not the day to day folks to keep services running despite the near constant attacks on us.
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u/HarpersGhost I voted 3h ago
Honestly, start working with your local government. That's where you'll find true public servants.
The blowhards you see on the news are by nature NOT humble public servants. They are in it for the power and the clout.
The people running your local rec center/elderly center/utilities office/libraries don't have power, they don't get a ton of money, they just do it because they care about the community.
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u/IntellectAndEnergy 5h ago
Pass a law through congress to place caps on campaign donations, outlaw gratuities, and any other outside form of compensation that is used to buy the allegiance of our so called “representatives”. This law would nullify the Supreme Court decisions of Citizens United and Snyder v. U.S.
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u/TerminalProtoco1 5h ago
Pass a law through congress to place caps on campaign donations, outlaw gratuities, and any other outside form of compensation that is used to buy the allegiance of our so called “representatives”. This law would nullify the Supreme Court decisions of Citizens United and Snyder v. U.S.
"I got it!
We'll just ask the people defrauding us to make it illegal to defraud us!"
Great ideas guys. Sure this will work out!
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u/SuperTaster3 5h ago
Jail time for white collar crime, with politicians not being exempt. Start at 5 years, with additions based on how egregious the crime was. And no, not some cushy pretend jail, they're going in the slammer to be roommates with a big ol' guy called Randy.
Fines are a business expense. Laws can be defanged with money over time. But a billionaire/politician being in prison? They are, by definition, the most sensitive little snowflakes. They have to have control over things around them, pathologically so. You take away that control, you take away their ability to access power, and you will watch them crumble.→ More replies (5)→ More replies (25)•
u/dragon-fence 5h ago
Well, there’s revolution. It’s what the founding fathers would have wanted.
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u/MirthandMystery 6h ago edited 6h ago
Middle of article: "The Atlantic reported that the fundraising push was signed by Fetterman and included links to donate to his own campaign. The text push also included a message from Fetterman reading “I’m always going to reject Socialism and the anti-American way of life,” and warned that socialists are “hijacking the Democratic party.”
"The money is also flowing through Anedot, a payment processing system that is used by Republicans. This comes after his relationship with the Democratic-aligned digital fundraising firm, MissionWired, ended in June.
“MissionWired ended its engagement with Senator Fetterman’s campaign in June 2026,” Kate Kline, the firm’s CEO, told The Atlantic in a statement. “We had no involvement in a revenue-sharing plan with Republican entities, and if we had become aware, we would have objected to the strategy and refused the work.”
This text was put on right-wing Sen. Mike Lee’s radar, who forwarded it to his own fundraising list. He then teased the idea that Fetterman could actually switch parties if enough conservatives were on board.
“I just got an email from John. He’s basically a Republican now,” Lee wrote in a solicitation that The Atlantic obtained. “I need your help to draft him.”
The fundraising almost comes as no surprise given how Fetterman has cozied up to Republicans in recent months. He has largely toed the party line in Senate votes, but has helped Republicans get big wins.
"I'm not going to be a Republican!" he shouted recently to reporters on Capitol Hill.
"Why can't you guys just wait 'til the midterm, you know? And if I turn a Republican and then-I'll be a liar, then?"
Still, his former staffers remain unconvinced, with one telling The Intercept. "He loves being the enigma. He loves the, 'Well, you're gonna have to see what happens.'"
Being unreliable, backstabbing and flip flopping is what Fetterman is. Mislabeling it as being mysterious isn't what this is, it's classic corruption.
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u/dogs_gt_cats 6h ago
He loves being the enigma.
Because that's what we want from elected officials. That's what businesses need to plan for the future. "An enigma."
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u/MirthandMystery 6h ago
Unreliability, what a plan. This helps weakens Democracy.
'Maybe, could be, will I or won't I' isn't any way to govern. Sociopaths think they're being clever by using this tactic. It's a Trump specialty. But for some politicians it's become a sad model of imitation.
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u/UnknownAverage 4h ago
The GOP are the kids who never understood the difference between "good" and "bad" attention. They live in a world of PR where getting your name in the headlines is all that matters.
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u/aguynamedv 5h ago
Still, his former staffers remain unconvinced, with one telling The Intercept. "He loves being the enigma. He loves the, 'Well, you're gonna have to see what happens.'"
You know who else has been described as "an enigma"?
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u/Oregon-Pilot 5h ago
But why the fuck do we have partisan money processing?! Just seems RIPE for corruption. God damn this place.
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u/thedailybeast ✔ The Daily Beast 6h ago
MAGA’s favorite Democrat has secretly been fundraising with Republicans, leaked text messages reveal.
Right-wing groups have been working with Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania behind the scenes to get Trump-sympathetic voters’ attention, according to reporting from The Atlantic and The Intercept.
“I thought you would be interested in this high-performing Fetterman copy,” Leah Mergener, an account associate at the GOP-aligned firm Blitz Digital Group, wrote in a message.
“It has been doing crazy numbers for us,” her message added.
The money is also flowing through Anedot, a payment processing system that is used by Republicans.
Read the full story, here.
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u/Ding-Dong-Dutch 6h ago
There's a video of Fetterman saying I'm a life long Republican on accident.
Bet that wasn't an accident. They hope the clip goes around and people are dumb.
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6h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SwordfishOk504 Canada 5h ago
I mean, the dude had a stroke that clearly broke his brain. The idea he was a secret Republican for years and years is a bit silly. He's voted with the Democrats 88% of the time.
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u/jimothee 4h ago
Silly? For this timeline? I'm not saying it's true but you seem to be clinging to the safeguards of a just world...which has really been burning us lately.
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u/Do_Not_Comment_Plz 5h ago
So is his wife a total fucking fraud too? How is she staying married to this ogre?
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u/AdrenolineLove 5h ago
cmon now. all these Republican grifting scumbags have wives somehow. Money and comfort.
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u/Do_Not_Comment_Plz 5h ago
Yeah but most of their wives don't run non profits aimed at helping migrants while their husbands fellate the pedophile piece of shit who put them into harms way to begin with.
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u/AdrenolineLove 4h ago
You mean the same non profit that was critiqued claiming they had layoffs that disproportionately impacted LGBTQ, neurodivergent, and minority staff members after the DEI changes that happened in the last 2 years? Kinda points to her maybe being a piece of shit Republican too.
This is probably just another grift to launder money.
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u/mysecondaccountanon Pennsylvania 3h ago
I mean, divorce, especially for a woman who was formerly undocumented, is always very hard and complicated. I remember reading reports that she seems scared and stuff.
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u/IgnatiusRileyFreeman 5h ago
It wasn't an accident, the headlines claiming it was an accident was a psyop
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u/taitaofgallala 4h ago
With PA being a swing state, it makes sense that Fetterman is compromised beyond belief. Look at what they stand to gain. Nothing about his occupancy in political office seems legitimate
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u/Sensitive-Flamingo84 6h ago
This whole situation needs to be prevented, conning the people who elected you to represent them
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u/DraculasDog 6h ago
I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, but it’s been happening at least since 1789.
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u/wheatgivesmeshits Texas 6h ago
All the more reason to stop it. Someone being able to lie to get a job and having no way to remove them for 6 years is insane.
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u/Mercdecember84 6h ago
I don't think he conned anyone, I think the him having the stroke broke his brain
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u/thatoneguy889 California 5h ago
But there are people who knew him from before he was a public official that have said he’s always been like this on some level.
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u/b-machine 6h ago
Here is his voting record in the Senate, if you're interested in seeing on which bills he voted with Republicans
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u/i-grow-not-show 6h ago
So, the Republican is doing Republican things? Got it.
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u/cgentry02 6h ago
Politics is easier to understand if you look at it from a "People vs. Business" lens.
If you stand up for your constituents and the humans that you represent, your honor, your word, and your legacy are important. You need to represent yourself as trustworthy. This is actually quite difficult, but those that do live throughout history.
Now, if you represent a business or industry lobby, you only really represent one thing. Your "success" only hinges on helping that industry. Your name is thrown in the trash, your actions are irredeemable in the public eye, and your honor will be nonexistent. You sell yourself, your family name, and your soul for the money.
Now, ask yourself, which party most closely represents each of these ideas?
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u/MiddleAgedSponger 6h ago
Fetterman was always a republican plant, we fell for it. Corruption and fraud of this sort should be a crime.
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u/dogs_gt_cats 6h ago
And to think, we could have had Lamb or Kenyatta. But we chose the guy who Tom Wolf refused to endorse.
I really, really wish Wolf had stated publicly why he refused the endorsement.
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u/AggressiveCuriosity 4h ago
People forget, but this was Bernie Sanders' guy. Fetterman was always super pro-Israel but the left loved him at the time because he was generic anti-establishment blue collar guy #738.
It's just like people voting for Trump because he's got the "succesful businessman tough guy outsider" image. People voted for Fetterman and Platner in their primaries because they had the same thing, but for blue collar workers.
Most people don't vote based on policy. It's all image.
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u/TurboSalsa Texas 3h ago
People forget, but this was Bernie Sanders' guy.
Bernie doesn't get enough criticism for failing to properly vet the people he endorses and elevates - Fetterman, Platner, and Sanders Institute Founding Fellow Tulsi Gabbard.
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u/jimkurth81 6h ago
I concur. It should be a felony and considered impersonation of a political figure, or, fraud
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u/-Googlrr 6h ago
Ya people blame the stroke and its a convenient excuse but IMO its safe to say at this point I think he was just always a Republican and was lying to everyones face. Republicans will lie to get what they want
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u/PepperoniFogDart 5h ago
Idk, it certainly makes sense to me how only someone with brain damage would consider MAGA policies to be the right approach to governing.
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u/lastoftheromans123 2h ago
3-1 says he flips and becomes a Republican after the midterms
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u/bakerfredricka I voted 2h ago
Fetterman even went so far as to accidentally describe himself as a "lifelong Republican" the other day for what that might be worth....
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u/officer897177 2h ago
Only if it flips the balance. The senate would rather resort to soap opera level shenanigans to manufacture deadlock than risk accomplishing anything positive for the American people.
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u/Nem_Enforcer 5h ago
I can't believe I was duped into voting for this guy. But on the plus side, no Dr. Oz as a PA senator.
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u/uhp787 5h ago
full article
MAGA’s favorite Democrat has secretly been fundraising with Republicans, leaked text messages reveal.
Right-wing groups have been working with Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania behind the scenes to get Trump-sympathetic voters’ attention, according to reporting from The Atlantic and The Intercept.
“I thought you would be interested in this high-performing Fetterman copy,” Leah Mergener, an account associate at the GOP-aligned firm Blitz Digital Group, wrote in a message.
“It has been doing crazy numbers for us,” her message added.
The Atlantic reported that the fundraising push was signed by Fetterman and included links to donate to his own campaign. The text push also included a message from Fetterman reading “I’m always going to reject Socialism and the anti-American way of life,” and warned that socialists are “hijacking the Democratic party.”
The money is also flowing through Anedot, a payment processing system that is used by Republicans.
This comes after his relationship with the Democratic-aligned digital fundraising firm, MissionWired, ended in June.
“MissionWired ended its engagement with Senator Fetterman’s campaign in June 2026,” Kate Kline, the firm’s CEO, told The Atlantic in a statement. “We had no involvement in a revenue-sharing plan with Republican entities, and if we had become aware, we would have objected to the strategy and refused the work.”
This text was put on right-wing Sen. Mike Lee’s radar, who forwarded it to his own fundraising list. He then teased the idea that Fetterman could actually switch parties if enough conservatives were on board.
“I just got an email from John. He’s basically a Republican now,” Lee wrote in a solicitation that The Atlantic obtained. “I need your help to draft him.”
The fundraising almost comes as no surprise given how Fetterman has cozied up to Republicans in recent months. He has largely toed the party line in Senate votes, but has helped Republicans get big wins, including siding with them on a series of war powers resolutions brought by Democrats to rein in Trump over his war with Iran, as well as on government spending bills.
While he originally ran as a left-wing populist in 2022, as he enters his fifth year in office, Fetterman has turned into MAGA’s favorite Democrat.
He is a frequent face on Fox News, even traveling with a group of Republican politicians for a retreat with Fox News executives at Rupert Murdoch’s ranch in Montana.
Earlier this month, he even spoke in a recorded address to attendees of the Republican midterm convention as he delivered remarks denouncing socialism, in a similar sentiment to that of his fundraising messages.
During the video, he called himself a “common-sense Democrat,” and appeared to take a swing at the left wing of his party, saying, “I’m always going to reject extremes of socialism,” and vowed to work “with President Donald Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life.”
Fetterman’s former staffers are furious with him for fundraising on behalf of the GOP, especially in such a tight election for control of the Senate as the 2026 midterm elections are shaping up to be.
“After taking contributions from millions of small-dollar donors who wanted a Democratic Senate, John Fetterman turned around and became Donald Trump’s useful idiot,” one former staffer told The Intercept. “Now, it’s no surprise that he has to resort to GOP donors to prop up his dismal fundraising numbers.
While Republicans like Lee have all but dared Fetterman to switch parties, Fetterman has remained noncommittal about whether he will even remain a Democrat after the midterm elections.
“I’m not going to be a Republican!” he shouted recently to reporters on Capitol Hill. “Why can’t you guys just wait ’til the midterm, you know? And if I turn a Republican and then—I’ll be a liar, then?”
Still, his former staffers remain unconvinced, with one telling The Intercept. “He loves being the enigma. He loves the, ‘Well, you’re gonna have to see what happens.’”
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u/wioneo 3h ago
Fetterman has remained noncommittal about whether he will even remain a Democrat after the midterm elections.
“I’m not going to be a Republican!” he shouted recently to reporters on Capitol Hill. “Why can’t you guys just wait ’til the midterm, you know? And if I turn a Republican and then—I’ll be a liar, then?”
These two statements are hilarious next to each other.
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u/X-Werebear-X 2h ago
People are still saying it was his stroke. Cmon now. Ya gotta see it by now lol
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u/hudsoncress 1h ago
Is it Fraud and a Felony to run for a democratic seat and vote republican against the will of the constituency that elected him? Or do we just have to wait for the democratic national commitee to do nothing first?
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u/Wentil 6h ago
This was the whole reason the Founders so explicitly warned against the rise of Factions.
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u/Tasgall Washington 3h ago
Which was stupid, because they didn't formalize a party system within the government itself. Ignoring the existence of parties doesn't make them go away. Formalizing them would make it possible to actually regulate how they operate.
There is no such thing as "no factions". As long as at least two people agree on most things, you have a faction. This is unavoidable unless your population is in the single digits, and even then, it gets exponentially more likely when you reach the high... single digits, lol
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u/Mongoleeto 5h ago
shame schumer for leaving fetterman on important committees after he threatened to leave the party, crosses the isle to vote for evil republican shit so it can pass, he bashes other democrats, hes currently trying to sabotage democrats running in the midterms, and now THIS. fetterman is a piece of shit and should be stripped of committee seats and thrown out of the party. Unfortunately fetterman is israel first therefore he can say and do whatever he wants without worrying about the consequences because there wont be any
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u/Particular_Maybe1112 4h ago
Stop blaming his stroke for this behavior. He was always a piece of shit. He just had to hide it to get elected.
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u/MalevolentTapir 6h ago
He's working with them publicly too so I'm not really sure why it matters. I'm sure he is begging for cash anywhere he thinks he can get it, it's the only reason he is there.
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u/notsure500 6h ago
Why is there no method in place for a recall election when someone has gone so far off what they represented themselves as during the election.
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u/Mammoth-Mud-9609 3h ago
Calling Fetterman a democrat hasn't been accurate for well over a decade, if ever.
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u/InnocentAlternate 3h ago
Remember when Reddit was fawning over this guy, for almost no reason at all? As in, he just looked good next to Dr. Oz.
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u/throwmeabonepeeps 1h ago
Is there really any US citizen left that doesn't believed the only reason Trump wanted to become president was to A) not go to prison for being a pedophile. And B) become a billionaire again?
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u/Dpetruccelli15 Ohio 1h ago
Was this dude really like this and just hid it or did that accident really turn his brain into mush?
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u/l_rufus_californicus 4h ago
To the surprise of literally no one who's been paying attention.
GOP runs on the idea that anyone can be bought, or compromised, and so far, it's been a very successful policy.
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u/KarrlMarrx 3h ago
Story is behind a paywall. Is there anything more to it than he's grifting the most griftable people on the planet?
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u/grosseelbabyghost 2h ago
I'm in AZ, watching the news about Kyrsten Sinema and wondering how a one term senator and university lecturer was able to afford a large home, land and hundreds of thousands in fine art and fancy booze...
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u/JustABitSubstantial 2h ago
Remember that one time the party started uniting against progressive candidates cause they wanted to associate them with DSA and said democrats should be supporting democrats, not other parties? Anyone else remember that? I wonder what happened to those people.
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u/TomatoNecromancer 3h ago
Any elected official that switches party lines and votes to hurt those that elected them should receive life in prison.
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u/triplenested 2h ago
How would you define this "hurting"? And how would you define "party lines"? Are you just supposed to vote with your party no matter what or risk life in prison?
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