I remember the 2022 primary very well. A bunch of leftists in Philly and Pittsburgh running around Pennsylvania telling us that John Fetterman was exactly what we needed. He was going to be a fighter, for us. We needed an “authentic, blue collar fighter.” Pennsylvanians were dying for this guy that “doesn’t look like a politician.” The fact that all of the insiders were endorsing Conor Lamb and not siding with Fetterman was only more proof that he was who we needed now. Many of us raised questions. Even some of his opponents raised questions about what kind of guy he was. The progressive network in the big cities knew best though. I hated that he was our nominee, but eventually I voted for him, mostly because I think Dr. Oz is a jackass. There are days I really wish I had left that line blank.
I don’t mind that Fetterman is moderate, or that he supports Israel. I do too, to some extent. I mind that he was a fraud. He sold himself as some leftist/progressive champion, a blue collar guy from Braddock. He was no champion of the left, and he’s realistically just a trust fund kid that picked a tough blue collar town to launch his career in. It was a complete bait and switch. He wasn’t lying to me, I knew he wasn’t good. I still don’t like that he hoodwinked other people.
Well, meet Bob Brooks, now a candidate for PA-7’s Democratic nomination to Congress. Bob Brooks wants you to know that the Democratic Party forgot how to talk to working class people before he came along. Sound familiar? Yes, watch the Fetterman commercial above. It’s the same damn message, verbatim. That’s not shocking. Brooksy is literally using the same team that created the Fetterman myth. They want you to believe that he’ll come along and be different. Brooks, like Fetterman, will be a working class hero who fights for the little guy. Brooks, like Fetterman, is endorsed by Bernie Sanders. He even has the tacit Harrisburg insider support that Fetterman had when he was sitting Lt. Governor. If you just took Brooksy out of his own ads and had John Fetterman do them, there would be no skipping a beat. They both even tell you about how the steel mills left their towns (Brooks had no steel mills in his actual neighborhood). Similarly, neither actually ever did anything about it for those steelworkers, unlike opponents of their’s. Hell, Fetterman chased a black guy down the street with a shot gun because he thought he was shooting a gun- Brooksy probably agreed, he’s right with the 3%’ers on arming everyone. John Fetterman and Bob Brooks are basically the same guy, minus well…
You might be saying to yourself, “okay Rich, but Fetterman won his race.” Yes, he did, and at least for two years that was helpful on some basic level. The main difference is that John Fetterman didn’t stiff his former mother-in-law for $55k. Crooksy? Yeah, he did. Yeah, he never paid it back either. Look, it only took a few internet clicks to find. If I could do that, what will the NRCC and their allies do to defend a seat they paid tens of millions of dollars for? By the time it’s Labor Day in 2026, they will have portrayed him as the symbol of elder abuse and fraud in America. Hell, they’ll probably say he took the $55k to Wind Creek and gambled it all away while he was supposed to be on the clock working. Is it fair? Probably not. They’ll embellish the actual shitty thing he did and make it a new inquisition. Sure, Fetterman was a mess by the Fall of 2022, but he was running against a quack who made a fool of himself every time he spoke. Mackenzie just won’t speak. Problem solved for them. The Republican media machine will beat this guy over the head so badly with his transgressions that he’ll have to pick up and move after the race. That’s how politics are.
This is the choice that Democrats have to face on Brooks. Under the best case scenario, you get a carbon copy of the John Fetterman who mislead you on who he was and disappointed you as a Senator. These guys say the exact same things at the behest of the exact same people, even down to the talking points about “corporate pac money” and “stock trading” that neither of them is going to do shit about in Congress. And that’s the best case scenario. The worst case scenario? You’re nominating a “deadbeat” that the Republican Party will beat to death with the negatives that could be found without a Lexus Nexus account. You tell me what’s worse?








