Braddock

Fetterman, you'll remember, campaigned in 2022 as a kind of working-class everyman.

The hoodie-wearing, jean-short, rocking townie from Braddock, Pennsylvania, reminded me of so many friends I grew up with in Bucks County or went to college with in Pittsburgh.

He exuded Pennsylvania.

He felt authentic.

That's the one that you got to know first.

Yeah, the Braddock, right.

He had the Braddock zip code and then the dates of when people had been killed in Braddock since he'd become mayor.

But yeah, the sort of like he's tall and he's tough and he's got tats.

All of that coverage was how he first came on my radar.

Same,

definitely.

But I think the one that is more lodged in my brain is Cannabis Tour, John Fetterman, just because like during, well, I mean, the whole time he was mayor in Braddock too, but like while he was lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, he went on this 67 county tour to like drum up support and hear from constituents about cannabis and making it recreationally legal here.

He's a rich kid who plays like a working class American.

He has had several incidents with black men in his own town where he was the mayor in Braddock.

It's very disturbing stuff.

People looked away from it because he was willing to say he supported Medicare for all because they thought he was going to win.

As a card-carrying member of the Republican MAGA-Wang of the GOP, I feel the same way that the Democrats, I'm alleged that they feel about John Fetterman, about, oh, I don't know, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Tom Tillis, John Cornyn, right? Susan Collins.

But you know what we don't do is go out and create bogus bogosity for clicks, for headlines, to create the illusion that he's some big goof on the job who doesn't care about his local people, even though he has tattooed on his arms the names of the people who were killed in Braddock, Pennsylvania while he was mayor.

This is depravity 101.

This isn't a blue tsunami.

John Fetterman

grew up in York, moved to Braddock to start a GED program at Forgotten Steel Town.

When two of his students were gunned down, John ran for mayor to stop the violence.

John brought out the best in people.

He gave people hope.

Five years without a murder.

The town of Braddock is celebrating a milestone.

Today, people are really starting to have hope.

Joe, you know, like for the young people, you know, looking at their careers, I always wonder, now you're from Pittsburgh, born and raised in Pittsburgh.

Braddock,

town of

Braddock.

It's a small town.

It's a steel town right outside of Pittsburgh.

We've already watched pieces of this story unfold right here in America.

Journalist Peter Santenello, who has one of my favorite YouTube channels, recently traveled through the Rust Belt, stopping in Braddock, Pennsylvania.

Braddock sits in Pennsylvania's Mon Valley.

It's an old steel town and home to the very first of Andrew Carnegie's 1,679 public libraries.

At its peak in 1920, more than 20,800 people lived there.

Property values plummeted, and as a result, whole neighborhoods of homes became worth less than the cost of maintaining them.

The abandoned houses were demolished, leaving vacant lots scattered throughout the community.

Traditional grocery stores gradually disappeared, and Braddock became what economists call a food desert, where residents had little access to full-service supermarkets.