The Partisan Mind Virus

Remember the days after President Joe Biden’s barely coherent debate performance, when Democratic dead-enders insisted that nothing was the matter? That was embarrassing. But apparently it wasn’t so embarrassing that everybody took away the correct lesson, because something similar is now happening between Senator John Fetterman and a coterie of admirers on the right. Conservatives are now doing the exact same thing that the Biden defenders did: denying the obvious unfitness of a politician because he’s politically useful.

Fetterman is the subject of a devastating new profile in New York magazine (my former employer). Ben Terris reports that Fetterman’s staff and even his wife have repeatedly expressed concerns over his mental health, following a pattern of strange statements and actions from the senator, including a near-fatal car crash.