I'll admit, it was hard not feeling a sense of grim appreciation for the indescribable train wreck that was Democrat John Fetterman's debate performance this week. If nothing else, it meant that Mehmet Oz is almost certainly going to win that contest, further ensuring that the U.S. Senate will be in Republican hands come next January. That's good.
And yet the bitter sort of glee we might feel at our positional advantage in the midterms should not overtake our feelings of sympathy for this poor man. He humiliated himself on a global stage last night, absolutely botching probably the most important public moment of his life. He came off as a confused, helpless, inept incompetent. That deserves some pity.
Many conservatives have been quick to point out that Fetterman himself could have put a stop to this; he could have bowed out of the race altogether except that he apparently really wants to be a U.S. Senator and is willing to push himself past responsible limits in order to get there.
For the sake of argument, let us stipulate that this is correct — that Fetterman knows he's probably unfit to serve but he really wants to anyway and so he is just pressing forward. This is, in the great pantheon of human shortcomings, an altogether common failing, wherein a desire for worldly goods of some kind outstrips one's better judgment and good sense. Anyone who tells you that they have never done this is lying to you.
I see no reason why a man's poor discernment and bad risk analysis should render him unfit for empathy. If that is what disqualifies people from the circle of your affinity, then you are uncommonly stringent in your ability to feel for your fellow human beings and you should re-examine that standard.
John Fetterman advocates a great many things I disagree with. I hope he loses handily in the election; he deserves to on the merits and he most certainly deserves to based on his apparent incapacity for the job.
Still, spare a thought for him. He has simply discovered, in spectacular public fashion, what most of us discover at some point or another: That we aren't as good as we thought, that our abilities have left us, that our best days our behind us and we are not what we used to be. These are painful things to reckon with, even more painfully so when someone is forced to reckon with them in front of literally the entire world. Allow yourself to feel at least a bit of compassion for a man who is at this point desperately in need of it.
