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Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey<\/span> comfortably defeated<\/a> Rep. Seth Moulton in his Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday, in what the media \u2014 and Moulton himself \u2014 had described as a \u201cgenerational<\/a>\u201d challenge.<\/p>\n The framing is understandable: In a country suffering under gerontocratic rule<\/a>, Markey is 80 and Moulton is 47.<\/p>\n Age, however, was the least of what was at stake in Moulton\u2019s run from the decaying center of the Democratic Party. Moulton ran on a conservative line, recycling right-wing talking points<\/a> and echoing Donald Trump to suggest, erroneously, that Democrats have been failing because they have not been conservative enough.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s only 12 trans athletes in the whole of the NCAA. We should have been embracing them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Markey may be 80 years old, but his campaign did precisely what Democrats must if they want to appeal to progressives and bring in a broad working-class voter base: He ran on issues of economic inequality, taxing billionaires, green energy, and universal health care \u2014 all while refusing to jettison support for vulnerable minorities, especially trans people.<\/p>\n Meanwhile Moulton, claiming to represent a break in the status quo, repeated precisely the tired centrist playbook<\/a> that has both failed America\u2019s multiracial working class and failed to win elections. He punched left<\/a> and, as Markey himself highlighted, threw trans kids \u201cunder the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a risible misreading<\/a> of the Democrats\u2019 2024 presidential election loss, Moulton suggested that his party had shown too much care for trans rights. (It had not.)<\/p>\n \u201cI have two little girls,\u201d Moulton told<\/a> the New York Times just after the November 2024 election. \u201cI don\u2019t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n It was only last month that Moulton offered a tempered apology for the anti-trans remarks \u2014 and only because Markey had lambasted him during a debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just took the whole playbook of MAGA and Trump, and he blamed those kids for the loss,\u201d said Markey, who has been consistent in his advocacy for trans rights. \u201cWe should have been loving those kids. There\u2019s only 12 trans athletes in the whole of the NCAA. We should have been embracing them.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, we should question the validity of this so-called \u201cdebate\u201d entirely: Why did the moderator of a Senate primary debate even feel the need to ask a question about trans girls in sports at all?<\/p>\n \n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n This is not, after all, a political problem in need of addressing in Massachusetts, or anywhere else. It is a ghoulish far-right panic<\/a> that has been baselessly elevated into a hot-button issue, with the help of Democratic cowardice<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fox News, of all places, noted that Markey is \u201cone of the few Democrats running this midterm cycle who is continuing to push for transgender rights, particularly in sports\u201d \u2014 as if that were a bad thing.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is good evidence that transgender issues were a major part of Markey\u2019s victory, too,\u201d wrote<\/a> reporter and trans advocate Erin Reed. \u201cIn the final days of the campaign, a UMass\/Amherst poll asked primary voters how a candidate who embraces anti-trans positions or policies would impact their vote. In that poll, a whopping 67% stated it would make their vote less likely for that candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n Markey, the longtime incumbent<\/a>, was already at an advantage. And no doubt proselytizers for Democratic Party conservatism will stress that Markey\u2019s victory in deep-blue Massachusetts cannot offer lessons for Democrats running in less progressive territory<\/a>. This again would be to selectively learn the wrong lessons from Kamala Harris\u2019s spectacular 2024 failure.<\/p>\n It should not need repeating that Democrats in 2024 campaigned<\/a> on Republican talking points<\/a>, with Harris donning khaki for photo ops at the Arizona border. If Donald Trump\u2019s campaign attacking trans people gained purchase, it is because Democrats roundly failed to answer it by demystifying right-wing anti-trans fearmongering<\/a>. They also failed to offer a robust, class-focused platform to vote for.<\/em><\/p>\n Being nearly half someone\u2019s age does not constitute a generational challenge; contesting the staid ways of a generational establishment does. Moulton did nothing of the sort.<\/p>\n\n
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