“Fetterman?” one speaker yelled from a stage near the steps of City Hall.
“Jagoff!” protesters shouted back in unison.
“Fetterman?”
“Jagoff!”
in Fetterman’s case, it describes a politician who campaigned as a Bernie Sanders–loving populist and vowed to help Democrats advance their priorities past the party’s two obstructionists, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin—only to reprise their roles once in Congress and cozy up with Republicans.
“He ran in the 2022 primaries against Joe Manchin, and now he’s become Joe Manchin,” says Mike Mikus, a longtime Democratic operative in Pennsylvania. “An unprincipled Manchin.”
He’s sided with Republicans on denying immigrants due process, voted to confirm a 2020 election denier to lead the Department of Justice, and approved a GOP budget that freed Trump to slash spending without oversight. His recent actions have enraged progressives, mystified colleagues, and alarmed former and current aides.
Brain damage, mayn. Pretty fkn obvious.
One of my best friends has had multiple TBIs. She doesn’t always make the best decisions, but she is still a good person with the same morals and core values she has always had.
In the case of Fetterman, I feel like you’re really giving brain damage too much credit for his consistent willingness to do harm to other people.
Even other people with brain damage have spoken out against this guy.
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/as-fellow-stroke-survivor-fetterman-disgusts-me-20341662.php
I mean, regardless of anecdote or how people feel, stroke survivors personalities shifting and becoming more selfish, conspiratorial, and hateful is a well known and documented medical phenomena. Like many such things, it happens in some cases and not others, and on a spectrum of impact.
I don’t know if anyone, Fetterman included, knows for sure the truth.
I’ve had a stroke. I didn’t become more selfish, conspiratorial, or hateful. I just became more sympathetic to brain trauma survivors after relearning how to walk.
Fetterman just sucks.
The behavior that results following brain damage usually correlates with where the brain damage occurs.
To say that this would fully explain Fetterman is to pretend that there is a single imaginary area of the brain that works as a moral compass and his was completely wiped out following his stroke.
That’s not to say he couldn’t be more easily manipulated or persuaded by outside forces because of the brain damage.
With a stroke, the whole brain is being affected. It’s a partial or complete lack of oxygen.
Everything is on the table.
https://www.stroke.org/en/help-and-support/resource-library/lets-talk-about-stroke/personality-changes
Everything is on the table. Something like production of speech into meaning can be damaged following a stroke, so that somebody could very clearly write down what they want to say but lose the ability to verbally express the same words.
There is no single area of the brain that fully regulates or controls moral behavior. Even with global damage you may see decreased functioning. You might expect randomness or inconsistencies in behavior, but this seems like a pretty consistent pattern for him. That’s what makes it hard to believe brain damage is the full explanation.
You made a claim.
I made a scientific claim that counters yours with evidence from a trusted, scientific source.
Either cite a scientific source that directly states such a personality change cannot occur in this way from a stroke, or you’re just arguing against science with vibes and feels and no one here needs to take you seriously.
You’re confusing personality and morality. Those are two separate things.
I never argued that a personality change couldn’t occur. Personality change in humans following a brain lesion from an injury is neuroscience 101.
That is not what this is.
I’m arguing that Fetterman’s support of things that contradict who he (still to this day, claims to be) are harmful to the people he is supposed to represent should not be excused as simply a consequence of his stroke.
Still don’t see any sources for any of these claims.