John Fetterman and the Performance of Wellness
The particular challenge of enduring depression as a public figure
Yesterday, Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who suffered a stroke at the near-peak of his political campaign last May, announced that he was checking into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to treat a case of obdurate depression. The discussion since then (at least in the mainstream press, and among his Democratic colleagues) has focused, rightly, on what a sea change this is—how it is now possible, as a national politician, to openly declare your mental suffering and do something about it without fear of calamitous repercussions. The benighted days
