It’s hard to neatly categorize John Fetterman’s politics. Which may be why so many people focus on the shorts. 

To be fair, the Democratic front-runner for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat stands out. The 6-foot-8 lieutenant governor has a head as bald as a bowling ball and a goatee that typically frames a scowl. He forgoes the usual politician’s uniform of khakis and a button-down for a black Carhartt sweatshirt and basketball shorts – even in the winter, and even when meeting with officials in Washington.  

His policy stances could be described as Brooklyn by way of Bethlehem Steel. The former mayor of a small, heavily Black town near Pittsburgh, Mr. Fetterman supports abortion rights, has long advocated for legalized marijuana and a higher minimum wage, and officiated a gay marriage in 2013 before it was legal. He’s also a gun owner who objects to a fracking ban – a major issue in the Keystone State – and says he doesn’t fully support the Green New Deal. When speaking to a few dozen fellow-goateed union members in the fluorescent-lit hall of United Steelworkers of America Local 2599 in Bethlehem, Mr. Fetterman emphasizes that “we need to keep making [stuff] in this country.”

The race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania offers one of the few potential pickup opportunities for Democrats in a cycle that is otherwise shaping up as a difficult one for the party. A crowded slate of Republican candidates – including the Trump-endorsed celebrity doctor, Mehmet Oz – have been waging an expensive and increasingly nasty primary battle here. On the Democratic side, by contrast, Mr. Fetterman has effortlessly cruised to a nearly 40-point lead over his nearest rival, Rep. Conor Lamb, ahead of the upcoming May 17 election.

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Campaign signs for John Fetterman and Democratic Rep. Susan Wild hang outside the United Steelworkers Local 2599 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

One reason seems to be his perceived “electability.” A rare combination of mostly left-leaning policy stances with a style that’s more WWE than Ivy League (never mind the fact that he holds a graduate degree from Harvard), Mr. Fetterman presents the tantalizing possibility of a Democratic candidate who can win over not only the urban and suburban dwellers who make up the party’s base, but also the white working-class voters who constitute a significant share of Pennsylvania’s electorate – and who’ve been fleeing the Democratic Party in droves.

It may be a difficult balancing act. At the first statewide debate last month, his opponents attacked him over a nine-year-old incident in which he used a shotgun to detain a Black man who turned out to be an unarmed jogger – an episode critics say could hurt him among Black voters. Others wonder if his bearing may prove too abrasive for well-heeled Bucks County residents.

At the same time, some strategists believe that the working-class voters who’ve left the Democratic Party simply aren’t coming back – and that the exodus will continue to grow. An NBC News analysis last year found that the percentage of working-class voters nationwide who identify as Republicans has grown by 12 points over the past decade, while the share who call themselves Democrats has decreased by 8 points. President Joe Biden, for all his talk of Scranton roots, didn’t perform all that much better in 2020 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 in most of Pennsylvania’s rural counties.

Still, Mr. Fetterman’s fans think if anyone can reverse that trend, it’s him. As lieutenant governor, he embarked on a 67-county listening tour, and has made a point of campaigning in all parts of the state – an effort that will test whether the Democratic Party’s increasingly progressive brand can broaden its appeal, if it comes in radically different packaging.

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

John Fetterman poses inside the United Steelworkers Local 2599 union hall on May 2, 2022, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He supports abortion rights and legalized marijuana, but he is also a gun owner who objects to a fracking ban – a major issue in this energy-producing state.

“John comes off as the working guy, the steel working guy. I mean, look, he wears boots to a formal dinner,” says Jerry Green, who has been president of Local 2599 for more than two decades.  

“I was about ready to give him a blow torch down at the plant today,” he adds with a chuckle, referencing the tour he gave Mr. Fetterman at the nearby Lehigh Heavy Forge. “He fit right in with us.”

A symbol of U.S. manufacturing’s decline

Directly across the Lehigh River from the union hall is the old Bethlehem Steel plant. Founded as the 20th century dawned, Bethlehem Steel was one of the largest steel producing companies in the world, aiding in the construction of major landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Empire State Building in New York. 

Its bankruptcy and subsequent dissolution in 2003 is often held up as a symbol of U.S. manufacturing writ large. Today one part of the rusting plant, which still casts a shadow over the river, is a concert venue and tourist destination, with informational placards about the industry. The rest is slowly being reclaimed by nature, tree branches weaving their way through shattered windows.

Larry Neff, sitting attentively at the front of the union hall as he waits for Mr. Fetterman to arrive, worked at Bethlehem Steel for almost three decades. When his father started out there in 1943, there were 46,000 employees. Decades later, when Mr. Neff, his two brothers, and his brother-in-law started working at the plant, there were fewer than half that. Now, Mr. Neff runs a Facebook group called “Bethlehem Steelworkers and their Families and Friends.” Most of the posts are obituaries. 

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Larry Neff, waiting for Senate candidate John Fetterman to speak at the United Steelworkers hall in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on May 2, 2022, worked at Bethlehem Steel for almost three decades. He now runs a Facebook group called “Bethlehem Steelworkers and their Families and Friends.”

As the areas’s fortunes shifted, so did its politics. 

“There are a lot of Democrats around here who voted for Donald Trump,” says Mr. Neff, adding that he was not one of them.

In 2016, Mr. Trump shocked Democrats by flipping several states in the party’s longtime “blue wall” – including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, all states a Republican presidential candidate hadn’t carried since the late 1980s. While there were many factors at play in Mr. Trump’s Pennsylvania victory, one of the biggest surprises came in the former industrial hub of the Lehigh Valley and surrounding northeast, a onetime Democratic stronghold. Although Mr. Trump won the Keystone State by fewer than 44,300 votes overall, he won the 11 counties here by more than 85,000 votes.

“He channeled into something that I saw happen in real time,” says Mr. Fetterman, recalling his own surprise six years ago when he heard that Mr. Trump was campaigning in Monessen, a small town in western Pennsylvania. “I was like, ‘What is Donald Trump doing here?’”

In an interview, he gives Mr. Trump credit for doing something other candidates did not: He “made the case,” Mr. Fetterman says, to voters who felt like they’d been left behind – “people that were rightfully frustrated with bad trade deals, and rightfully frustrated with this sense that you are living in a part of Pennsylvania where its best days were a generation ago.”

“We did lose votes in the union membership rolls to Trump. I mean, that’s a fact,” Mr. Fetterman continues, his phone service cutting in and out as he drives through northern Pennsylvania for campaign events. “You can’t fix anything until you acknowledge the problem.”

The worry among some Democrats, though, is that acknowledging the problem might not be enough. Because while Mr. Biden did win Pennsylvania in 2020, and he cut in on Mr. Trump’s 2016 margins in some of the rural counties around Scranton, he still lost this region by more than 60,500 votes. 

“Fetterman likes to make a lot of the fact that he goes to these small counties, and I do give him credit for his 67-county strategy,” says Christopher Nicholas, who has been a Republican consultant in Pennsylvania for more than three decades. But Mr. Nicholas is skeptical as to whether that effort will pay off in any kind of meaningful way. “If he gets 150 more votes there, it’s not going to make much of a difference.” 

From small-town mayor to national spotlight

For all his “blue collar” street cred, Mr. Fetterman describes his own upbringing as comfortably middle class. The son of an insurance executive, he was raised in a suburb of York, a few hours south of Bethlehem. After getting his undergraduate degree from Albright College in Reading and an MBA from the University of Connecticut, he joined AmeriCorps in Pittsburgh, helping disadvantaged young people earn their GED certificates. He earned a master’s in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, before moving back to the Pittsburgh area, to a small town east of Braddock. In 2005, he was elected mayor, after winning the Democratic primary by one vote. 

“You ever seen Braddock?” Mr. Green of Local 2599 asks, eyebrows raised. A former steel town that has lost more than 80% of its population since World War II, its current population is estimated by the U.S. Census to be fewer than 2,000 people. More than 70% of the town’s residents are Black. About 35% are below the poverty line – almost triple the statewide average. 

Mr. Fetterman served as Braddock’s mayor for 13 years, earning national attention for his efforts to bring new housing, businesses, art, and an urgent care facility to his shrinking and struggling town. A Brazilian immigrant named Gisele Almeida who read about the mayor’s revitalization push was inspired to write him a letter. In 2008, they were married; they now have three children. 

“The way he was brought up, and what he’s doing in Braddock, I leaned on that more than the lieutenant governor thing,” says George Bonser, a retired steelworker who started donating monthly to Mr. Fetterman’s campaign a year ago. 

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

A view of the abandoned Bethlehem Steel plant on the banks of the Lehigh River in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Once one of the largest steel-producing plants in the world, it declared bankruptcy in 2001. Now, the rusted-out buildings have become something of a tourist destination.

One incident from his time as mayor has cast a darker shadow. In 2013, Mr. Fetterman was outside with his 4-year-old son when he heard what he thought was a burst of gunfire. Grabbing a shotgun, he stopped a Black man wearing a face mask who was running nearby. Officials later determined that Christopher Miyares was on a jog and was unarmed. 

Local Black leaders – including state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, who’s running against Mr. Fetterman in the Senate primary – have criticized his actions. He says he made a split-second decision to try to prevent additional violence, and that he never directly pointed the gun at anyone. He also points to his track record reducing crime in Braddock, where he famously had the date of every violent death during his tenure tattooed on his forearm. The town went more than five years without a homicide. 

To be sure, winning statewide will require doing pretty well everywhere – and for Democrats, the suburbs are increasingly key. At a meeting for local progressive group Lehigh Valley For All – in the same union hall where Mr. Fetterman spoke to union workers the night before – several women cite his ability to win suburban votes as part of their reason for backing him, even if they personally might prefer someone else.

“I loved Malcolm Kenyatta. He was my jam,” says Kathy Harrington, who founded the group with her son David after the 2016 election. When Mr. Kenyatta won his seat in 2018, he became one of the youngest members of the Pennsylvania legislature and the first openly-LGBTQ person of color ever elected to either chamber. 

“But we have to be pragmatic about how we can win,” Ms. Harrington adds. “I think John Fetterman appeals to just about everybody – even people in the middle of the state.” In their endorsement rankings of candidates, Lehigh Valley For All gave Mr. Fetterman three stars, Mr. Kenyatta two stars, and Mr. Lamb one. 

A former Marine and moderate Democrat, Mr. Lamb became a rising star in the Democratic Party when he won a conservative district north of Pittsburgh in a 2018 special election. He has since been reelected twice, and was widely expected to be the Senate Democratic front-runner before the primary got underway. But his campaign has lagged far behind in fundraising and in the polls, a reflection perhaps of the challenges more centrist candidates are facing at a time when many Democratic base voters and donors have moved left. 

If Mr. Fetterman wins the primary, Mr. Nicholas asserts that his progressive stances on issues will make him easy to attack in a general election. “Once you get past his appearance and demeanor, he’s still a guy who is wrong for [working-class voters] on the two key issues that motivate a lot of them: guns and abortion,” says the GOP consultant. Although a gun owner, Mr. Fetterman has advocated for “common sense” gun control measures.

Still, supporters like Mr. Green are convinced Mr. Fetterman will prove to be that rare Democratic candidate who can win over a wide swath of voters from across the political spectrum. 

“He dresses like a biker, he’s built like a steelworker, and he has a Harvard education,” says Mr. Green. “I mean, we got it all in this one guy.”

The distinctive performance by the feminist group Matriadanzante (Dancing Motherland) draws an enthusiastic crowd on the main boulevard of the Chilean capital’s historical center.

As they sing and twirl in their bright red skirts and black shirts, each young woman has a small child strapped to her chest.

“I’m raising children, not on vacation,” some chant as they dance, followed by “Motherhood is a 24-hour job!” from others. A hand-lettered sign delivers their political message: “Sustaining life is a collective duty.”

Maybe it’s the ensemble’s with-it Frida Kahlo look, or the progressive overtones of the group’s messaging. But the young mothers certainly sound like they would be supporters of Chile’s new young president, the former student activist Gabriel Boric, who took office March 11.

And indeed, it seems they are – even as some express the same mix of expectation and impatience shared by other supporters of Mr. Boric in his first weeks on the job.

“Boric is a symbol of fresh energy who wants to renew our politics and move our social conditions forward, and that is something our country needs,” says Vernisse Nielsen, a mother of two sporting her group’s signature multicolored headband.

“But we know he faces threats from the ultra-right just as we who support a feminist motherhood do,” she adds. “So while we remain hopeful, we also plan to keep dancing in the streets, to remind Boric we are here and what people expect of him.”

Regional battle for the left

For the bearded and tattooed Mr. Boric – at 36, the country’s youngest president ever – the sky-high expectations for deep and rapid change from one side of Chile’s political spectrum are only half his problem.

On the other side he faces a skeptical conservative population, stretching from the country’s business elites to many middle-class families, that is shaken by the prospect of significant economic and social change imposed by the left.

Esteban Felix/AP

Chilean President Gabriel Boric arrives at La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, May 2, 2022.

That split leaves the youthful Mr. Boric walking a perilous tightrope, balancing between sustaining the hopes that propelled him into office and tamping down expectations – and fears – of quick and revolutionary change, some political analysts say. The high-wire act is one reason for what is being described as the steepest plunge in popularity by a new president in modern Chilean politics.

Moreover, the precipitous fall has also dimmed a star that just weeks ago was heralded as the model of a new Latin American left – one that could meet the pent-up aspirations of a struggling working class and activist youth without slipping into authoritarianism, as has occurred in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

With more Latin America countries – including Argentina, Peru, and Honduras – turning in recent years to leftist leadership, some experts say a regional battle for a dominant left-wing vision looms.

Indeed, if leftist presidential candidates win in democratic elections this year in Brazil and Colombia, one likely result will be a decadelong struggle for preeminence between solidly democratic left-wing governments and “the more authoritarian-aligned [leftist] actors” in the region, says Evan Ellis, Latin America research professor at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Plummeting support

But these days in Chile, the talk is less of the country as a model for regional leftist governance and more of a quick presidential fall from grace.

The country’s political divide, plus what some say were the inevitable mistakes of an untested leader with inexperienced advisers, also explains Mr. Boric’s short presidential honeymoon. Three different opinion polls taken in April show support plummeting and disapproval shooting up by 30 percentage points.

“What these recent polls tell me is that a lot of the Boric voters from the [December] elections were not so much Boric supporters but were rather voting against the very right-wing alternative,” says Andrés Rebolledo, dean of business and economics at Santiago’s SEK University and a former government official in international economics.

“This large group of voters has no loyalty to Boric or to his policy goals,” he adds, “so they have been quick to disapprove as mistakes were made or as policies that weren’t even necessarily his were discussed and played prominently in the media.”

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Communist students (left to right) Sofia, Pablo, and Valeria pose at the May Day rally in Santiago, Chile, May 1, 2022. President Gabriel Boric is not a Communist, Sofia says, "but of course we support him."

Mr. Boric rode into office in March on the crest of landslide December elections that seemed to confirm Chileans’ hunger for change. After all, the election of a young progressive president followed the strong “yes” vote in an October 2020 referendum on whether to replace the military dictatorship-era constitution.

That “yes” to a constituent assembly to write a new constitution followed the October 2019 social uprising that brought Santiago and other major cities to a halt and revealed a youth population tired of standing on the outside of Chile’s vaunted economic prosperity.  

Indeed, for decades after the end of the military dictatorship in 1990, Chile was consistently among the region’s top economic performers and a model of political stability, with political parties of the moderate right and left working together toward sustained prosperity.

But Chile’s free-market economic model, which was heavily dependent on international trade – and guided by a constitution favoring the interests of the economic elites – also resulted in one of the least equitable societies of Latin America.

Boric’s challenge: to govern

The uprising of 2019, the vote for a new constitution, and Mr. Boric’s election were all signs of deep dissatisfaction with the status quo, analysts say. But now some supporters of the idea of change are souring on the new president as he learns the ropes of governing, they add.

Mr. Boric’s rising unpopularity is also dragging down support for the new constitution, which is to be voted on in another referendum in September.

Some Chileans who didn’t support Mr. Boric in the election say he only has himself to blame for his plummeting popularity.

“I think of what [former President Sebastián] Piñera said recently, that it’s one thing to criticize and to offer beautiful ideas, but it’s something else to govern,” says Ignacia López, a public relations specialist with a Santiago energy company. “Boric showed his inexperience and scared some people with some extreme appointments to high-level positions.”

Indeed, eyebrows rose across Santiago’s largely right wing-dominated media and among corporate elites when Mr. Boric named Maya Fernández Allende – granddaughter of former socialist President Salvador Allende, ousted from power (and killed) in the 1973 military coup – as his defense minister.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Lawyer Juan Cristóbal Cantuarias, who says Chile's young president "represents the yearnings for a new, younger, more inclusive, and widely representative Chile," participates in the May Day rally in Santiago, May 1, 2022.

On the other hand, Mr. Boric’s leftist partners in his governing coalition, including the Communist Party, howled disapproval and publicly questioned the new president’s commitment to undoing the country’s neoliberal economic model when he named the widely respected former central bank chief Mario Marcel as finance minister.

Now a president who encountered adoring throngs as a candidate must count on hecklers (and even the stray rock thrower) at public events.

Core of support

But for the most part Mr. Boric’s left-wing supporters are sticking with him. At this year’s May Day march in central Santiago, no one in the mix of labor unions, youth organizations, environmental activists, and progressive groups like Dancing Motherland appeared to have turned hard against their bearded president.

“Boric represents the yearnings for a new, younger, more inclusive, and widely representative Chile, but it’s not something everybody wants and so of course there will be difficulties along the way,” says Juan Cristóbal Cantuarias, a young lawyer who recently took a job in the city of Santiago’s law department.

“Boric is profoundly socialist, but he also recognizes that not all Chileans agree with that, so he’s governing from a more pragmatic position that won’t force fast changes the country may not be ready for,” says Mr. Cantuarias, who counts himself among the “realists on the left” who understand that significant change can’t happen overnight.

Even a group of university students representing Chile’s young Communists appeared to be unanimous in their support for Mr. Boric.

“It’s not news that Boric is not a Communist, but he is for workers, he is for social justice, he represents the first opportunity in decades for change that will benefit the working class – so of course we support him,” says Sofia, a social work major in Santiago who asked to use only her first name.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Andrés Velásquez, a finance director for a construction company, at his home in Santiago, Chile, May 2, 2022. He says he supports the country's new president, but his main concern is for a new constitution, which “will define our path forward for decades to come.”

Some Chileans who are standing by Mr. Boric say they have their eye on the bigger prize of a new constitution, which they say will be the real measure of a more inclusive nation distributing opportunities and well-being more broadly.

“Presidents come and go, but a new constitution will define our path forward for decades to come,” says Andrés Velásquez, a finance director for a small Santiago construction company who voted for the Communist candidate in the first round of presidential voting.

“Now that he’s in office I see Boric governing from the center-left, but his priorities are 100% in social issues like education, public health, and decent retirements, and of course the new constitution,” Mr. Velásquez says.

“Boric is facing pressures from the extremes on the right and the left on the constitution, but he understands the importance of delivering a document that includes all Chilean people and is more equitable than what it replaces,” he adds. “I think that’s something a majority of Chileans will support.”

The life of a White House press secretary isn’t easy. Reporters coming at you at all hours for answers, asking the same questions over and over. The fear that you’ll be caught off guard by a question, live on television. The nonstop ferreting out of answers from inside the White House – essentially, being a reporter yourself – so that you fully understand an issue and can explain it to the public.

But for Jen Psaki, who finishes her 16-month stint as White House press secretary on Friday, the hardest part for her personally, she says, is the threats.

“I have had nasty letters, texts to me with my personal address, the names of my children. It crosses lines, you know, and that’s when it becomes a little scary,” says Ms. Psaki, speaking to reporters Thursday at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.

While protesters haven’t shown up at her house, as has been happening to Supreme Court justices this week over the abortion issue, Ms. Psaki says the threats have become common – and alarming. In some cases, she’s had to share information with the Secret Service.

“It is a sign of the venom that we see out there in society,” she says. 

“I recognize I’m in many ways a public figure. People can like me, dislike me. That’s OK. And I believe very much in free speech,” she adds. But “my kids are 4 and 6, and I worry about their safety.”

Ms. Psaki has ready advice for her successor, Karine Jean-Pierre, who will be both the first Black and first openly gay person to serve as White House press secretary. The advice comes via Ms. Psaki’s mom, who is a therapist with a bit of “a hippie vibe,” as Ms. Psaki puts it.

“She said to me before my first briefing, ‘Stiffen your spine and keep your feet planted on the ground, and nobody can waver you,’” Ms. Psaki says, getting a bit emotional.

Fun fact: Ms. Psaki conducted more briefings than all of the press secretaries of the Trump era combined. Including her briefing Thursday afternoon, Ms. Psaki’s total is 223, compared with 205 in four years of President Donald Trump, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, an expert on presidential communications.

The C-SPAN video of the breakfast can be viewed here.

During the hourlong session, Ms. Psaki discussed topics ranging from a moment in the briefing room she wishes she could do over to how her children help her do her job.

The following excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity.

On a briefing room moment Ms. Psaki wishes she could do over – the time in December when she snapped at a reporter about the idea of sending free COVID-19 test kits to every American:

The truth is, if you look back at the transcript, I had said about 9,000 words about what we had done for testing, expanding markets, making tests available, funding. ... And I think it was by about the ninth or 10th version of the question that I think I had just hit my limit, and, you know, we’re all human.

But it is your job to control that urge and to always provide information, context, all the details – even if people in the room sometimes look like their eyes may roll back in their head because they’re kind of bored of the same question. And that was a good lesson for me.

Now I will say, just to go back to the context, I was asked, “Why wouldn’t we send tests to every American?” We have still not done that. And if we had done that, I would still say it would have been a waste of taxpayer money. People wouldn’t have used them – they would have thrown them out. But I did not provide the context, and the tone was not right in that moment.

On what her children think about her work:

My son may or may not still think I work at the Honda dealership at the top of the street. He loves cars, so I take that as a massive compliment.

When I was discussing this job, I took my [then-5-year-old] daughter out for ice cream. And I prepared this speech in my head, how Joe Biden was elected to be president. That nice man. ... I said, “He’s asked me if I can go help him. And I want to do this because it’s important for our country, but it’s going to be a sacrifice. And that way it’s going to be a sacrifice for you, too, for the country.”

I felt really good about myself. And I said, “So what do you think? Does that make sense?” And she said, “Not really, Mom.” She took another lick at her ice cream.

On how being a parent helps her do her job:

There is a hectic, wild roller coaster every morning and day. But I also think that being a mom and a parent brings a different perspective to this job.

I live in a suburban community outside of Washington, D.C. When I have conversations with people on the street, it’s not about where the reconciliation bill is, even in northern Virginia. It is about, are we wearing masks or are we not wearing masks? When are kids’ vaccines going to be available? Is our health really at risk?

Often, it’s not political at all. Sometimes it’s about what is happening at your school or when the leaves are going to be picked up. And that perspective, being a mom, recognizing the challenges people go through as it relates to COVID – schools being closed, the challenge and the pressure on families, worries about mental health impact – those are all things I live in my daily life.

On why President Biden – who had promised to fire anyone who treated a colleague with disrespect – didn’t immediately fire deputy press secretary T.J. Ducklo in February 2021 when he threatened to “destroy” a female reporter:

Let me just say first that I hope anyone on my team or my colleagues would say that what I’ve done in this job is try to create an environment of respect for the media.

What I can say, reflecting back on that, is that obviously what he said and what he conveyed is completely unacceptable and did not meet the standard the president set, and the standard I set.

What I would also say, though, is that we have to think very carefully. He is somebody who is in his young 30s, a survivor of cancer, had been on the campaign for two years.

That does not make what he said and did acceptable. But I also believe that what we need to do as people, as leaders, as bosses, as mentors is to show people how to handle things correctly and with compassion and with empathy and help people find the right way back. And that is also important, as we’re thinking about people who make mistakes, who act in a way that doesn’t meet the bar. That should be a standard in the workplace.

On whether she will miss Peter Doocy, the Fox News reporter with whom she often spars:

I will. I think we have a very good professional relationship, and I understand that he’s coming there to ask questions every day that are important to report and to the outlet he works for, and I respect that, and we have healthy debates and discussions. It doesn’t mean I agree with his line of questioning on most days, but I’ve called on him every day he’s been there – or a Fox person, Jacqui [Heinrich], who’s been there a lot as well.

We’re sending the message to the country that we’re not focused here on a fight with Fox. We’re focused here on the work of the American people, which is very important to the president, the first lady, and me in this job, in this moment in history.

Julie Hershovitz

Author Scott Hershovitz (right) stands with his sons Rex and Hank.

If you’re the parent of a young child, Scott Hershovitz says you’re raising a philosopher “whether you know it or not.” In the delightful “Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy With My Kids,” Hershovitz, a law and philosophy professor at the University of Michigan, uses thoughtful and amusing conversations with his sons, Rex and Hank, to prove his point. He insists, though, that all children harness their creativity and curiosity to make sense of the world, not just those with their own in-house philosopher.

“Nasty, Brutish, and Short” is a bit reminiscent of the NBC show “The Good Place.” The philosophy professor on the sitcom endeavors to teach morality and ethics to an unapologetically amoral person, and his bite-size lessons are woven into the show’s action and humor. Here, the action and humor – of raising children, in this case – offer Hershovitz opportunities to expound upon an assortment of philosophical principles related to rights, punishment, knowledge, infinity, and more.  

The book, like the show, is funny (its title uses Thomas Hobbes’ 17th-century description of what life would be like in a state of nature as a tongue-in-cheek characterization of the author’s kids). Not only because kids indeed say the darnedest things – his do from the very first page, when 2-year-old Hank, in need of a tooth flosser, repeatedly insists that he needs “a philosopher” – but also because Hershovitz, raising the boys with his social worker wife, Julie, has a witty and winningly self-deprecating style. In that instance, he is thrilled and then quickly crushed as Hank’s true meaning becomes apparent. “A philosopher is not something that people need,” Hershovitz ruefully observes. “People like to point that out to philosophers.” 

Some chapters are responses to a position those familiar with young children will recognize, of a rational being attempting to reason with an irrational one. When Rex refuses to put on his shoes, deploying “you’re not the boss of me,” a phrase he’d recently picked up in preschool, Hershovitz follows with an examination of that claim, exploring the philosophical differences between power and authority. But like many parents, he eventually shuts down the endless back-and-forth with “because I said so,” a phrase he thoroughly parses.

"Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids" by Scott Hershovitz, Penguin, 380 pp.

More often, the author is recounting philosophical conversations with his sons. Some are initiated by Hershovitz, as when he asks Hank, in reference to the family dog, “What’s it like to be Bailey?” Others begin with a thought or observation from one of the boys, as when Rex, at age 4, says, “I wonder if I’m dreaming my entire life.” In all cases, Hershovitz takes his sons’ ideas seriously, letting them do most of the talking. “I never pull rank on my kids,” he says. “I won’t tell them what to think about a question, even if I tell them what I think about it. I’d rather they work their ways toward views of their own.” 

The book also wades into current cultural debates over transgender women and sports, climate change, and reparations for slavery and segregation. In the latter case, Hershovitz cites philosophers who study race but also applies an example from parenting. “Suppose your kid plays at another kid’s house and breaks something,” he suggests. “You might think that you should take responsibility, even though you weren’t responsible.” 

While the author clearly gets a lot of joy out of parenting, he’s no doubt aware that the experience will change. Hershovitz points out that these forays into philosophy work best with young children, who approach the world with wonder and aren’t yet self-conscious enough to worry about embarrassing themselves. His open-ended questions, which yield such fertile results in the book, might soon be met instead with eye-rolling. And when his boys are teenagers testing their independence, he will likely see his parenting recommendation “ask them questions and question their answers” take on an entirely different meaning. By then, though, the bond evident in their mutually respectful dialogues should serve them all well.

AP

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy receives a standing ovation as he addresses Sweden's parliament via video link, in Stockholm, March 24.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced many countries to rethink the meaning of security, and none more so than Finland. Once a model of neutrality, it announced Thursday that it would apply to join NATO. Sweden is expected to follow suit. Both Nordic nations, of course, would be defended by the military alliance. Yet both see joining NATO as less a slap at Russia and more as an invitation for aggressive powers not to see the world as a chessboard, one of only winners and losers in competition and conflict.

For Finland, joining NATO increases “our security and we do not take it away from anybody,’’ said Finnish President Sauli Niinistö. “It is not a zero-sum game.” The alliance allows in only countries dedicated to democratic values. NATO’s values and its defensive posture pose no threat to anyone, he says.

In Sweden, where the ruling Social Democratic Party appears ready to end a tradition of military nonalignment, the reasoning about joining the 30-nation alliance is similar. NATO’s mutual defense pact is needed to deter further Russian aggression, But as a former minister of foreign affairs, Margot Wallström, explained in a 2018 speech, the essence of common security is “breaking the false logic of confrontation, deterrents, and zero-sum games with the aim of creating shared advantages for everyone.”

In Finland, officials made sure to say they are not punishing Russia by joining NATO. Rather, they want Russians not to see threats when neighbors, such as Ukraine, move toward democracy and individual rights. “Security is not a zero-sum game. I hope that the Russian regime will one day understand this, too,” writes Alexander Stubb, a former prime minister of Finland, in the Financial Times.

While the individual militaries of NATO’s members are well armed, it is the transcendent democratic values that bind the alliance and attract more applicants. The invasion of Ukraine pushed Finland and Sweden to seek shelter under NATO’s wing. But not at the expense of Russia.