The Pennsylvania Senate race has it all: crudités, allegations of carpetbagging, two outlandish, irregular political personalities going scorched-earth for one of the most competitive seats in the country.
And now, Republicans are pushing a not-so-subtle narrative that Democratic nominee John Fetterman supports—or maybe even has ties to—a gang. The Crips, to be exact.
The Crips news cycle began after the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site, published a piece Monday detailing Fetterman’s use of the Crips-favored spelling of Braddock, Pennsylvania, while running for mayor of the town in 2005. The gang used the spelling “Braddocc”: a moniker Fetterman used in some campaign messaging in an effort to reach younger voters in the run-down steel town.
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After winning his first term, Fetterman also launched the website Braddocc.com as part of his revitalization plans for the town.
Over the years, Fetterman has addressed the mid-aughts strategy, saying it shouldn’t be interpreted as glamorizing gangs.
“During my campaign, I [used] ‘Vote John Mayor of Braddocc’ and ‘Vote John Mayor of Braddock’ the way it’s traditionally spelled, and the reason why I did that is because there are two Braddocks, and you have to acknowledge that,” Fetterman said in a 2015 interview. “We have to acknowledge that here’s the Braddock that only young people know, the Braddock of despair and decline, and they grew up in an era when they never knew there were 14 furniture stores and three movie theaters.”
But in the spirited campaign-cycle tradition of forgoing nuance, Republicans, including GOP Senate nominee Mehmet Oz, are digging in.
“PA Democrat John Fetterman Embraced Spelling Of Braddock That Showed Fidelity To Notorious Crip Gang,” Oz tweeted Tuesday, parroting a Breitbart headline on the subject. He’d posted the Washington Free Beacon article Monday.
“Democrat John Fetterman has a dangerous record on public safety and crime. Voters know he can't be trusted to keep Pennsylvania safe,” the official GOP account tweeted with a link to the Washington Free Beacon article.
“Why does John Fetterman have a sign hanging in his home with “CRIPS” graffitied on it?” and the Republican National Committee chimed, pointing to a “Historic Braddock” sign that has the gang’s name painted at the bottom. The Fetterman campaign says the sign is merely an artifact from the Braddock community.
The Fetterman-Crips messaging follows a rant from Fox News’ pundit Tucker Carlson last week questioning Fetterman’s forearm tattoos. Fetterman’s tattoos largely refer to his work in Braddock—with one section of tattoos detailing the dates of deaths by violence in the town.
But with the Crips front of mind for Republican spinsters, a tattoo on Fetterman’s arm reading “I will make you hurt” caught the attention of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R) this week. Though Gingrich served in Georgia, he is a Pennsylvania native.
“Is Pennsylvania Democrat Fetterman’s tattoo ‘I will make you hurt’ based on his ties to the Crips gang as reported by the Free Beacon or a reference to the nine inch nails heroin song “Hurt”. Fetterman won’t answer questions,” Gingrich tweeted.
But Fetterman campaign spokesperson Joe Calvello confirmed, as much of the internet suspected, that the tattoo is a reference to the 1994 Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt,” which has been covered by numerous popular musical artists including Johnny Cash and Leonna Lewis.
The Oz campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether the television doctor earnestly believes Fetterman supports the Crips or other gangs, or whether he believes Fetterman has ties to the Crips. The Oz campaign, like many Republican operatives this cycle, has tried to paint Fetterman as weak on crime.
But Calvello told The Daily Beast the conservative-led Crips narrative is “absolute bottom-of-the-barrel bullshit. Like, you can see how desperate these guys are getting.”
“This is what they’re reaching to… and it’s frankly embarrassing,” Calvello said. He added that “under John, crips in Braddock were taken off the street and put in jail.”
Terry Madonna, director of the Franklin & Marshall College poll and an expert on Keystone State politics, said the attacks on Fetterman run up against the brick wall of his 6’8, well-established brand as someone who does not present himself as a normal politician.
“I don’t see that as overly relevant, to be honest with you,” Madonna said of the tattoo line of attack. “Because Fetterman embraces it.”
“You can disagree with the way the guy dresses if you want, but it’s who the guy is, and he’s comfortable that way,” the pollster told The Daily Beast later on. “I’ve been following the campaign pretty closely, and it does not come up that this turns people off.”
The Crips messaging also doesn’t necessarily translate 300 miles away in Philadelphia, where Oz recently canvassed the city’s Kensington and Germantown neighborhoods to talk about crime, gun violence, and drug addiction.
George Mosee, the executive director for the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network, noted that gangs in The City of Brotherly Love are highly localized, and that national ones like the Bloods and Crips haven’t had a visible presence in the city compared to Braddock.
“What we don’t have are the Crips and the Bloods on a large scale basis,” Mosee told The Daily Beast, “and for that reason we don’t have affiliations that are actually marked by tattoos, clothing—to a large extent, that just doesn’t happen in Philadelphia.”
In Trumpworld, longtime ally and former Health and Human Services spokesperson Michael Caputo said the latest line of attacks are an example of the Oz campaign trying to fight fire with fire—or shitposting with shitposting—in response to the Fetterman campaign’s more unconventional online tactics.
“I take it as the Oz campaign tipping their social media hats to the singular weirdness of the Fetterman campaign,” Caputo told The Daily Beast. “In the theater of the absurd, weird is king.”
