The author says a John Fetterman video drew a roar at last week’s Republican midterm convention in Dallas—odd for a Democrat. She recants her 2022 Oz-race skepticism: Fetterman beat a “crudité” outsider in shot-and-a-beer country because he looked like the Mon Valley, not because of the D next to his name.

Braddock and the Monongahela towns (Monessen, Donora) are framed as steel-and-coke country wrecked by deindustrialization, NAFTA promises, and slick politics. Fetterman’s clothes, post-stroke speech, and brick-wall live shots are called authenticity the valley prefers to Shriver-style Courvoisier politicos.

He talks to Fox, will not treat Trump as enemy No. 1, and keeps Democrats “in an uproar.” A Hill-quoted PA strategist doubts he runs again as a Democrat. The author’s what-if: if Democrats take the Senate by four seats in November and Fetterman then flips, he wrecks that majority. He says he will not switch; the column treats the rumor as the night-sweat scenario.

Just the other evening, at the Republican Midterm Convention, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was introduced to the GOP faithful. Yes, he’s a Democrat, but when his video hit the big screen, the crowd roared its approval. It was a stunning moment. How did this former mayor of a small town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, come to be so beloved by the party that did not elect him?

To understand Fetterman, one must grasp his place of origin. He hails from York County, PA, but moved to the borough of Braddock, situated on the northern side of the Monongahela River, in the early 2000s. It’s one of many small municipalities affected by the end of the industrial age in the late 20th century.  The farther south-southeast you drive from Pittsburgh into what’s affectionately known as the Mon Valley, the more you run into an economic........

© Eurasia Review