No man is an island. At least, that’s what John Donne told us in the seventeenth century.
For some reason this quote remains stuck in my head after reading a headline on an Axios story by political reporter Erin Doherty. “Fetterman on an island as he reaches out to MAGA.”
To be clear, she didn’t call Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman an island. She just said in the headline and her lede that the temerity of talking to Republicans put him on one, “apart from other Democrats.”
Many members of the Democratic party – those elected, within the party apparatus, and the overly sympathetic media members who cover them and for them – are still having trouble with their national sweep in the November elections. The public coping has many going through many stages of grief on their way, we can only hope, to eventual acceptance.
Pretending it didn’t happen, and that that next year will be a redux of 2017 resistance rather than 2025’s acceptance by most of the country will not be good for Democrats, media, nor the country.
A few recent headlines should serve as a warning to those who still wish to pretend there is a public demand for resistance. Donald Trump, for the first time since becoming a serious political contender, has a net positive approval rating. More people like the President elect than those who do not.
Meanwhile, a survey conducted by CNBC puts a finer point on this. They found that a majority of Americans are ready to support President Trump and large parts of his agenda.
The 2024 election is over. It is time to move forward. And it is time for members of the media to realize that Republicans aren’t zoo animals to be viewed from behind glass walls in their natural habitat, but at least for right now, people that represent mainstream views for a majority of the country.
Senator Fetterman isn’t on an island. And as the Axios article notes, he’s hardly a conservative nor a Republican. His biggest break with the progressive wing of the Democratic party comes over support of Israel and his staunch defense of it, along with his utter contempt for the manufactured anti-Semitic protests which consumed elite college campuses and cities willing to tolerate them.
Progressives who want to win again in 2026 and 2028 should take a look at Senator Fetterman’s style. They also need to look at the Trumpian movement within the GOP for lessons on how a new majority was built. There’s a central lesson here from and for each of them.
The MAGA faction of Republicans decided that they just wanted to win. Everything was on the table. While Progressives and media decided to make the 2024 elections largely about Roe vs Wade, there was little attention given to the fact that former President Trump specifically told the pro-life movement there would not be a national abortion ban. And…they just accepted it and stood down.
There is a balance that must be maintained within a party’s coalition politics. It is the conservatives or progressives that give each party their soul. It is the moderates that give a party power. Those willing and able to be an independent voice often become the broker to what can and can’t be done.
As parties become hostage to their individual base voters, moderates become more and more the enemy. There are direct attacks. Then there are the subtler pieces noting “that guy over there doing things differently? He’s way out there on an island.”
Senator Fetterman isn’t on an island. If anything, he’s on an isthmus. He’s occupying a land bridge that has open communication with those who at a minimum will control the agenda.
He’s in a position to give a critical extra vote in the Senate. He’s also developing the gravitas to pull other moderate Senators – think Collins from Maine or Murkowski from Alaska – away from votes on bills that are too far to the right.
Those who put their party first don’t like the moderates. A quick scan of social media will already reveal calls for a primary to Senator Collins for having the temerity to assert she wants to hold to the Senate’s role of advice and consent for Presidential nominees in the confirmation process. Nevermind that Collins is Republicans’ best chance to hold a seat in Maine which is otherwise now a Democratic stronghold.
Republicans won. Progressives lost. And yet, 2025 is largely still a blank slate.
President Trump has some conservative ideas. He also expanded the tent with union voters and other non-traditional Republican voices. He’s very transactional in his politics, rather than an ideologue.
There’s the opportunity for those who choose to engage rather than resist to shape policy here. It’s those who choose to stay on an island – whether alone or in large numbers – who will miss that chance.