Photograph Source: Maayan Toaf – CC BY-SA 3.0

A divide is growing in the Democratic Party between democratic socialist upstarts and establishment Democrats. We saw the divide last Tuesday, June 23, when three members of Democratic Socialists of America won Congressional primaries in New York. The three were endorsed by New York City’s charismatic democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani. Democratic socialists and other progressives also came out on top in Maine, New Jersey, California, and Philadelphia.

Not everyone is feeling the love, however. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) told the conservative New York Post that “the Democratic Party is becoming an orgy of socialism,” which makes the Democratic Party sound more fun than it is.

Fetterman dismisses the socialists with a term Amber A’Lee Frost, co-host of the Chapo Trap House podcast, coined to describe herself and the podcast: “dirtbag left.” What differentiates the dirtbag left is largely a matter of style. It’s a style that is marked by irreverance, vulgar humor, and lack of decorum. When President Trump came down with Covid, the Chapo Trap House hosts gleefully looked forward to his death.

In remarks to Fox News a few days after the primaries, Fetterman didn’t merely call the victors “dirtbag left”; he said they’re “not Democrats.” Or “socialists.” They’re “communists,” “many of them,” who ought to “form their own party and run on all the things that they’ve had to delete on social media.”

The Left invested great hopes in Fetterman. There were signs that the Left’s hopes would be disappointed as early as December 2023 when Fetterman, not quite a year into his first term, told NBC News: “I’m not a progressive.”

No Freebies from Big John

Fetterman angered progressives by his vote during the federal government shutdown in October and November 2025. This was the third government shutdown under Trump. It happened because Congress was unable to pass a continuing budget resolution. Passage of a resolution had been stalled for weeks over the expanded (also called “enhanced”) Obamacare subsidies which were to expire at the end of December. Democrats wanted to continue the subsidies, Republicans didn’t.

The federal government had been shut down since October 1 when finally eight Democratic senators, Fetterman included, voted for a Republican continuing budget resolution.

The eight Democrats said that they capitulated because reopening the government was urgent. Fetterman wrote on X.com (formerly Twitter) that he voted so that “our military, SNAP, gov workers, and Capitol police” could be paid.

The shutdown did cause real hardship.[1] Still, the continuing resolution Fetterman voted for may cause even greater—and more long-lasting—suffering to millions of average and low-income Americans who are losing their health coverage. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on June 26 released figures showing that about four million Americans have had to drop their health insurance coverage because their premiums skyrocketed—in many cases, by double digits—after the expanded subsidies expired on December 31, 2025.

Given Fetterman’s medical history, you would think he’d be more sensitive to Americans’ need for health insurance. A stroke nearly killed Fetterman in 2022. In 2023, his first year in the Senate, Fetterman was hospitalized for six weeks for clinical depression. In 2025, Fetterman was back in the hospital after a serious fall. Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist with two doctorates from Harvard University, commented on X that

“Senator Fetterman had a VFIB [Ventricular fibrillation or “v-fib” which causes the heart to beat erratically]—the leading cause of cardiac arrest—he almost died if not for his implanted defibrillator, which can cost $34,000 to over $51,000. Days ago, he also just voted with GOP to gut health insurance tax credits for millions. Hope he has change of heart.”

Unfortunately, affordable health insurance doesn’t seem to be one of Fetterman’s major concerns. Fetterman has mocked the idea of free healthcare. New York Magazine obtained leaked texts sent between Fetterman and his staffers. A group text Fetterman sent to his staffers in January of this year included an article which said that healthcare costs for average working families were nearly $4000 a year. Fetterman added the comment: “’How should it cost? Free?””

Yeah, John, free would be nice. The other industrialized Western democracies provide their citizens with free health insurance; and seeing as wages in the US have stagnated since the 1970s while corporate profits have skyrocketed, I’d say American workers have earned free health insurance.[2]

The Senator from Tel Aviv

The “dirtbag left” is isolationist and non-interventionist. Fetterman is an interventionist who shares several of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy stances.

According to the watchdog group Track AIPAC, by April 23, 2026, “Pro-Israel PACS” had spent $357,118 on Senator Fetterman’s behalf. That’s not surprising. Fetterman is so pro-Israel that some of his staff refer to him as the “senator from Tel Aviv”—although they have the decency to do so behind his back. He says that recognizing a Palestinian state would be rewarding Hamas. Fetterman has jeered pro-Palestine demonstrators at the Capitol, even running into his office on one occasion and returning with a small Israeli flag which he waved at the protesters.

Fetterman wrote on X.com that “The suffering in Gaza is crushing and real.” I’m glad Fetterman realizes that. But in the very next line of his post, Fetterman added: “Many people blame Israel, but Hamas is responsible for this hell on earth and they could end this today for peace in the region.” One gets the impression that if Hamas did not exist, Fetterman would have to invent it so that he would have someone to blame for the violence in Israel and Gaza.

Fetterman told Sean Hannity on July 1 that the “one thing” that would get him to leave the Democratic Party was if it became an “anti-Israel party” which denied Israel’s right to exist or its right to defend itself.

Venezuela

Fetterman told Fox & Friends that the Trump Administration’s ouster of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was ”a good thing,” which Democrats had wanted for years, so why are they complaining now?

Fetterman said: “America is a force of good, order, and democracy, and we are promoting these kinds of values. We are the good guys.” Small wonder that Fetterman despises someone like Darializa Avila Chevalier, the 32-year-old graduate student who won the Democratic primary on June 23 for New York’s 13th Congressional district.

In an interview with the conservative New York Post, Fetterman placed Avila Chevalier with the dirtbag left, which seems fair. Fetterman referred to social media posts (since deleted) in which “Chevalier described America as a f–king disgrace. She posted ‘f–k Kamala Harris’ and posted that she forgot napkins and wiped her hands on the American flag. She wants to abolish the border, abolish prisons. That is a deeply disturbed individual.”

No, that is an individual who is wise to US imperialism.

Iran

Fetterman believes Trump’s war on Iran has to be fought so that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon. In May, Fetterman cast the deciding vote against a War Powers Resolution which would have required President Trump to obtain Congressional authorization to continue the war on Iran. Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote against the resolution.

In June, Fetterman had a chance to redeem himself when the War Powers Resolution again came up for a vote. This time, the resolution passed, although once again, Fetterman voted against it.

2026 Midterms

Democratic Party moderates are running scared. They warn that DSA socialists will split the Democratic vote, thus ensuring victory for Republicans. They also say that use of the word “socialist” alienates voters and throws red meat to the FOX News and MAGA crowd.

The moderates may be right. But I say that the Democratic establishment is worn out and too beholden to corporations. What we need is more Democrats who fight what FDR called the “malefactors of great wealth.” We need Democrats who stand with average working people; who will fight cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare, and SNAP, and who oppose blowing our taxes on unnecessary wars.  On those counts, democratic socialists are just what we need.

Notes.

[1] By the time the government reopened on November 12, 2025, the shutdown had lasted 43 days, the longest full government shutdown in US history.

[2]  On January 8, 2026, the House of Representatives passed a three-year extension of the enhanced subsidies. Seventeen Republican defectors joined Democrats to pass the measure, 230 to 196. We are still waiting for the Senate to consider the bill.