Moulton hammers home a need for new leadership in Senate

If you ask Congressman Seth Moulton what his challenge to longtime Sen. Ed Markey’s seat is about, he will tell you, “This is a race that's a referendum on the future of the Democratic Party.”

Moulton’s message was clear during his rainy town hall event in Medford on June 23: Washington needs newer, younger leadership, and he is the man to bring it.

The four-tour Iraq war veteran told the 60 or so gathered for his listening tour, that everyone should thank Markey for his decades of service, but there comes a time to pass the torch to the next generation, and for Moulton, that time is now.

“That’s why I’m running in this race, and that’s why I’ve put forward a bold, aggressive, progressive agenda,” he said. 

Moulton hammered home the need for new leadership and ingenuity with plans for affordable housing, healthcare and education, which he calls human rights.

“The same old playbook isn’t getting it done,” he said. 

How do you get there

Banning private equity from buying up neighborhoods and private homes and raising prices for everyone else, ensuring universal healthcare truly exists for everyone, and building a 21st century education system is how you get there, Moulton said.

But how do you really get there?

By getting yourself in front of the voters, he said.

Markey served in Congress for 37 years before jumping over to the Senate, where has served for 13. It might seem daunting to try to unseat someone who has served in Washington for five decades, but Moulton feels he has a good idea of what he needs to do to get elected. The Medford meeting was his 49th such event. He said his opponent has done three. 

“It’s just so important to connect with the voters that you want to represent, and every time I have one of these town halls, people walk out and say, ‘I’m a convert,’” he said. “The reality is that I just need to get in front of more Massachusetts voters.”

If the Democrats had big majorities in the House and Senate, Moulton said, he’d agree there would be a good argument for the same leaders and the same playbook in place. 

“But that’s not the case and that’s why I think we can’t afford to wait six more years for change,” he said, adding, “and I do say that with great respect for Senator Markey.”

The change he wants to see

Moulton said one way they get there is by making the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.

“We don’t hate them, but they’re just going to pay their fair share, because when Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon.com pay lower tax rates than the rest of us, that’s just not right,” he said. “That’s why I proposed a national wealth tax to just ensure that everyone pays their fair share, and that will ensure that these things – housing, healthcare, and education – are human rights.”

Moulton has also launched an organization called Serve America that helps recruit, mentor and support national service veterans running for office. Not just military veterans but also AmeriCorps veterans, Peace Corp veterans, people who have worked for the State Department or put their life on the line for their country in one way or another.

He said they have accounted for flipping 24 seats from red to blue across the nation since 2018.

“This matters because it’s not enough to have great ideas,” he said. “You’ve got to have a majority to pass them in Washington, and we’re in the minority in the House and Senate.”

One audience member asked Moulton what would happen if he was elected, but remained in the minority. Moulton told a story about sharing some of his own mental health struggles from his time serving in Iraq and a plan he had to establish a three-digit national mental health hotline. He said 988 became a law because he was able to find a Republican he could work with.

“The bottom line is, you’ve got to get things done, regardless of who’s in charge,” he said. 

And he did it by finding a Republican, a veteran who understood the issue, and together they crafted a bipartisan law that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, he said. 

Another audience member suggested Moulton’s goals were lofty and wondered how he would get everyone on board to help clean up the “tremendous mess” President Donald Trump will leave behind when he’s gone.

Moulton agreed there would be a mess and one that extended beyond a financial deficit. He said there would also be an infrastructure deficit, schools that need renovation or replacement, and a transit system that needs to be modernized. 

“We have a very old-fashioned system here in Massachusetts, that’s a deficit,” he said. 

Bringing it home to Medford, Moulton said it’s nice that the Green Line extension was finally completed – after two decades for a few miles of rail line – but it’s also absurd.

“We’ve got to do better,” he said. “I have proposed what’s called New England Crossrail to make it faster than driving to get around Eastern Massachusetts.”

Under his plan residents could live on the North Shore and work on the South Shore or take a train from Worcester to Salem or Plymouth without changing trains.

“Now that’s not radical, that’s just what the rest of the world is doing while we’ve been stuck in the past,” he said. 

Making it easier to get around also opens the door to better housing and more jobs, jobs that today are inaccessible, he said. 

And he reiterated that the way to pay for new transit, new schools and everything else is to force the uber-wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes.

That was Moulton’s second plan for cleaning up a post-Trump presidency mess. His first is to hold Trump and his cronies accountable for the corruption they’ve perpetrated and for breaking the law. 

Moulton was also asked about how to win back voters who jumped to Trump over the Democrats’ support of trans issues, how to keep AI safe and used responsibly while winning the AI race with China, and why isn’t everyone reading the new book about him.

He said Democrats need to be willing to have difficult discussions in regard to transgender Americans. They also have to win the AI race against China, but in a way that makes models safe and requires government regulation, he said, and they need to support those who inevitably lose their jobs to AI resources. 

As for the book, former librarian Susan McGonagle told the crowd she wanted them all to go to the library to read “Courage Can Save Us: Ten Extraordinary Americans and the Fight for Our Future,” by Rye Barcotte. Moulton is one of the 10 profiled.

What else?

“One out of every three people in Massachusetts considered leaving the state just last year, because housing is so unaffordable,” he said.

And, he said he believes a high-speed rail could help. There is a lot of housing around Springfield but if your job is in Boston, that’s two hours on the pike, one way, he pointed out.

“Imagine what it would do for the economy of Springfield to be able to get to Boston in 40 minutes,” he said, adding, “The federal government can have a role in this, and that's why I’ve introduced the American High Speed Rail Act.” 

If passed, the act would earmark $250 billion for high-speed rail around the country, which is about half of the bill that is coming due from Iran “for a war that we lost,” Moulton said.

“That’s about choices and priorities, and it’s about putting people in Washington who have a vision for the future,” Moulton said.  

The final take away

When asked if he ever made a mistake he’d like to correct, Moulton went back to his days as a Marine and told a story about essentially being fired from his position as platoon leader because, as he put it, he failed to manage up.

He said that applies today in Congress, where people disagree all the time, some within the same party.

“If you can’t have a working relationship with people, then you can’t get anything done,” he said. “You just get cast aside, you’re totally irrelevant.”

“I think that’s a life lesson that I learned back when I was about 25 that I’ve tried to carry with me in politics today,” he said. 

Wrap up

The audience, which ranged in age from teenagers helping with the campaign to young adults and seniors asking questions, seemed to hit on all the subjects Moulton warms to well.

“I’m talking about these issues because these are the issues that are on people’s minds,” he said, following the event.

Moulton said if Massachusetts Democrats feel leadership needs to change and 7 out of 10 do, then they need someone who’s willing to change it.

“The other thing I’d say to my critics is, come have a conversation,” he said. “I’m not afraid of a conversation. My opponent’s the one who doesn’t do town halls and doesn’t show up for debates. I’m out here all the time, so come, let’s talk.”

Moulton will face off against Markey in the primary, Tuesday, Sept. 1, while Republican challenger John Deaton remains unopposed.