People do not check into psychiatric facilities on a whim. It is a last resort, usually done by people facing the choice between death and treatment.
I know this from personal experience because there is a history of mental illness in my family, including time spent in such facilities. As often as not voluntary admission into treatment comes after a doctor tells a patient that their only other choice is being involuntarily committed.
That’s why I was shocked to read this New York Times story about how Senator John Fetterman, who is being treated for clinical depression at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, is supposedly conducting business while being treated for his condition.
I suppose the impulse to put the story out is to generate confidence in the Senator’s ability to conduct business and to explain how he is still sponsoring bills.
But my first thought was: this is a horrible abuse of a man who has been suffering abuse ever since his stroke.
Fetterman has not been a well man ever since his stroke last year, despite all the claims to the contrary. As a Democrat candidate for Senate and then as a US Senator, he has been propped up, almost literally, in order to enable his handlers to gain and exercise power.
This sort of thing has happened before–Strom Thurmond was clearly incapable of exercising his duties as a Senator at the end of his career–but there is something evil about what has been done to Fetterman.
Thurmond was weak and mentally dull by the end of his career, but at least he clearly enjoyed and benefited from being a Senator. His constituents were denied effective representation–not that they minded, apparently–but nothing cruel was being done to anyone.
That clearly isn’t the case with Fetterman. I am not shocked or even appalled by politicos grabbing for power; it is a normal if disgusting phenomenon. Lots of politicians are merely frontmen for a cadre of consultants and ideologues. That is just politics. Unappetizing, but normal.
But Fetterman’s team is torturing a man in order to exercise that power. Pennsylvania will have a Democrat Senator whether it is Fetterman or a gubernatorial appointee, so his people aren’t doing this to ensure their political party retains power. The only thing I can conclude is that Fetterman’s team is doing this to preserve their own power. Perhaps, they fear, a new Democrat Senator will bring in his own team.
That is evil.
In a cheerfully decorated common room at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, with floral paintings adorning violet walls, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania begins most days meeting with his chief of staff, who arrives at around 10 a.m. carrying a briefcase full of newspaper clips, statements for him to approve, legislation to review and other business of the day.
The contents of that briefcase encompass the majority of Mr. Fetterman’s connection to the outside world these days, as the first-term Democrat from Pennsylvania finishes his third week in the hospital being treated for severe clinical depression.
Doctors caring for him have said Mr. Fetterman should limit his exposure to cable television, the internet and social media — a major information detox for someone whose obsession, and occupation, is politics.
Mr. Fetterman, 53, rushed back to the campaign trail last year after suffering a life-threatening stroke days before the Democratic primary, a decision that those close to him believe may have taken a long-term toll on his recovery. This time, he is set on taking his time in treatment, with the hope of returning to work within the next few weeks.
Fetterman himself admits that his rapid return to the campaign trail permanently damaged his brain after his stroke. He could not and would not have done that without the encouragement of his team. It would have been easy enough for the Democrat Party to replace him on the ticket with a candidate who was equally capable but not likely to suffer more permanent brain damage after his stroke.
What his advisors and apparently his wife did to Fetterman led to his being in Walter Reed right now, getting treated for what is likely suicidality. His wife is galavanting around the world while he is being treated for a deadly condition, and now we learn that he is being forced to cosplay being a Senator to maintain the illusion that everything is fine and normal.
People who voluntarily check into psychiatric facilities do not lose their rights in the manner that people committed do, and that is as it should be. But it is difficult to imagine that physicians would recommend that Fetterman be forced to conduct business while being treated.
Yet his absence from the Senate has caught the attention of detractors who have publicly questioned Mr. Fetterman’s condition and suggested that his diagnosis renders him unfit to serve.
After his top aide tweeted pictures of Mr. Fetterman working from the common room this week, several people posted responses claiming with no evidence that the photographs were staged and that Mr. Fetterman was incapacitated. It is the type of discourse that his doctors and staff aides prefer that the senator not see.
The strict regimen may be working. People around Mr. Fetterman said they have noticed a palpable difference in him in recent days: His sense of humor has returned and he is more sociable, sharing with the nurses some of the sweets that have been sent to him by fellow senators.
As Mr. Fetterman continues his recovery, his staff is marching on in his absence, operating out of a dreary, windowless suite of offices in the basement of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, a typical work space for a freshman senator in an institution that runs on seniority.
The issue is not Fetterman’s detractors, as much as the Times or Fetterman’s aides may want to imply. Every politician gets attacked for both good and ridiculous reasons–Governor Ron DeSantis got attacked for wearing cowboy boots, for God’s sake! Pointing to the fact that some people are perhaps unfairly attacking Fetterman as proof that critiques of his continuing in the Senate are illegitimate is a distraction.
The issue is those who continue to prop up Fetterman for their own benefit. Whether Fetterman is incapacitated or not, he is being tortured for the gain of others. Even though he consents to this for his own reasons, anybody who claims to care for his well-being is clearly a liar. They are harming him–have already grievously harmed him–by pushing him to move forward with a job that is literally killing him.
The Democrat Party doesn’t need him there; literally, any warm body will do for their purposes, and they have the power to put in anybody they want from Pennsylvania. I am certain they have plenty of competent and willing candidates for the job. It is a Senate seat, after all.
This leads me to conclude that Fetterman remains in the Senate because the people who should be looking out for him are only looking out for themselves. Fetterman should resign for his own health. I would be surprised if his doctors haven’t already told him that, although no doctor would ever reveal his advice to a patient publicly.
If indeed Fetterman recovers enough to engage in politics at some point without risk to his health there are thousands of ways to do so. There are, after all, only 100 Senators. Most people engaged in politics are not and never will be Senators, and they can be effective. The Senator should be encouraged to take time to recover and move on to less taxing but still effective politicking.
I leave you with this, should you doubt that his inner circle is cruel:
At least once a week, his wife Gisele visits from Braddock, Pa.
At least once a week. Nice.
