Senator John Fetterman stunned CNN host Manu Raju when he plainly told Democrats they need to stop calling President Trump an autocrat, arguing that such hyperbole is both inaccurate and politically dangerous. Conservative commentator Dave Rubin picked up the clip and circulated it to his audience, which is why the moment has conservatives nodding in agreement and liberals squirming.
On Inside Politics, Fetterman repeatedly urged his party to “turn the temperature down,” warning against comparisons to Hitler and insisting, “this is not an autocrat — this is a product of a democratic election.” His bluntness cut through the performative outrage that has become the Democrats’ default, and it exposed the emptiness of constant apocalyptic rhetoric.
Good. Conservatives should celebrate when a Democrat admits what we’ve been saying all along: calling political opponents tyrants every time they win corrodes our civic culture and undermines the rule of law. Even left-leaning outlets noted that Fetterman’s comments reflect a growing unease within the party about its own rhetorical excesses and strategic misfires.
Fetterman didn’t couch his warning in theory — he invoked the shooting of Charlie Kirk as concrete evidence that overheated political language has deadly consequences and that leaders must calm passions, not inflame them. That reminder should shame the armchair revolutionaries and media mob who think branding opponents as dictators is an effective political strategy.
The larger lesson here is simple: Democrats have a messaging problem, not a morals problem, and their reflex to weaponize words like “autocrat” only hands Republicans the advantage. Instead of playing historical name-calling bingo, they should compete on ideas, listen to voters in swing states like Pennsylvania, and stop treating half the country as enemies rather than neighbors.
Patriots of every persuasion ought to demand better from our political class — honesty, restraint, and a return to normal civic discourse. When even a Democratic senator like Fetterman publicly rebukes the party’s fevered rhetoric and conservative outlets amplify that rebuke, it’s a moment worth seizing; it proves common sense still has allies in both aisles.
