Fetterman diagnoses Democrats' 'socialism problem'; colleague weighing primary returns the diagnosis one week later.

…(cont) So I went and got the notebook, the one with the coffee ring, because I wanted the date exact. August 28th. That's the day Senator Fetterman told The Hill the Democratic Party has a "socialism problem," and named Abdul El-Sayed, the nominee in Michigan, and Graham Platner, who dropped out in Maine. Two names, I told my nephew. He asked what the senator was doing that same week. I didn't know yet. So I found out.

Seven days later — September 4th, and I had my nephew check the calendar himself so I wouldn't get it wrong again — Congressman Deluzio told The Lever it's "a failure of leadership," talking about Senator Fetterman skipping constituent meetings with paralyzed veterans so he could be on television instead. Same week, a second Pennsylvania Democrat, Congressman Boyle, called him a "lazy trust fund baby" over those same missed meetings.

I asked my nephew: is "failure of leadership" the same shape of sentence as "socialism problem," just pointed a different direction? He told me that's not a legal question, that's reading comprehension. Fine, I said, answer it as reading comprehension.

Here's my demonstration, and it's not the kitchen — my wife made me promise, we did that last week — so we're doing this at the corner store, the one with the lottery machine. The owner unlocks at six every morning whether it's a slow Tuesday or a Saturday with a line out the door. That's the whole job: you show up on the days nobody's counting, same as the days everybody is. I asked my nephew, if that same owner skipped his shift to sit for a television interview, and his own brother, who works the register, called it a failure — would we say the brother did his math wrong? He said no. Then I asked what happens if that same owner spent the week before telling customers the other clerks have a discipline problem. He didn't have an answer for that one. Neither did I.

Congressman Deluzio is an Iraq War veteran himself, and the Washington Examiner reported September 7th that he's now weighing whether to run against Senator Fetterman in the 2028 primary. I've got that page folded in my coat pocket.

Excuse me — before you go, one more thing, since you're the one who explained consideration to me. When a man names the failure, dates it, and warns the party about it in writing, and then a colleague hands the same words back to him seven days later — does the warning still belong to the man who wrote it, or does it belong to whoever's holding it up when it gets read out loud?