'Won't take his meds': Stroke survivor slams John Fetterman in scathing op-ed

24 May

John Fetterman at a campaign rally in Bristol, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, on October 9, 2022 (OogImages/ Shutterstock.com)

When Democratic then-Lt. Gov. John Fetterman debated Dr. Mehmet Oz during Pennsylvania's 2022 gubernatorial race, he was recovering from the effects of a stroke. And some far-right MAGA Republicans mocked him just as they mocked then-President Joe Biden's speech impediment.

But the October 25, 2022 debate arguably helped Fetterman with Pennsylvania voters, some of whom praised him as gutsy for debating Oz and staying in the race despite his stroke. And Fetterman won the election, flipping a U.S. Senate seat that was held by arch-conservative Republican Pat Toomey (who decided not to seek reelection) at the time and was held by the late Sen. Arlen Specter at the time.

In a column published by the Bay Area-based SFGate on May 22, journalist Drew Magary — himself a stroke survivor — is highly critical of Fetterman. Magary, however, isn't attacking Fetterman from the right, but from the left. And the column is less about Fetterman's political record than the example he is setting as a stroke survivor.

Fetterman, Magary argues, is being a "bad patient."

"No two traumatic brain injuries are alike, and I can't know the extent of Fetterman’s brain damage because I'm not his doctor and because I'm prevented from seeing his CAT scans due to HIPAA laws — which currently remain in place until Oz, now in charge of Medicare for the second Trump Administration, throws them into a bonfire," Magary writes. "So, it’s not necessarily fair of me to present my own TBI (traumatic brain injury) as an apples-to-apples comparison with Fetterman's. I also understand that millions of my fellow Americans are bad patients: the inevitable result of a health care system that is both predatory and often unworthy of our trust."

Magary continues, "But this man, unlike most of us, is a sitting U.S. senator. A senator who won't take his meds, won't operate within the limits of his physical and mental health, and appears to have no interest in ever getting better when the people who work for him and the people who love him are begging him to try. Other TBI survivors are free to bail on recovering, but this man is a public servant whose actions resonate out of the Keystone State and across the entire country. John Fetterman is duty-bound to be a good patient; he and his colleagues take an oath of office that necessitates it."

Magary also argues that by representing Pennsylvania — a key swing state — Fetterman has too much power in the Senate.

"You and I should never have to worry about Pennsylvania," Magary writes. "It’s a dull, gray state that exists three time zones away from California and is populated by needy, hostile people. But because we live in a swing state-ocracy where control for every branch of the federal government is decided by the thinnest of margins in our most inessential states, we have the grave misfortune of having to not only care about Pennsylvania more often than sensible doctors recommend, but to care about the politicians who represent it."

Read Drew Magary's full SFGate column at this link.

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