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Seth Moulton, a Democrat, represents Massachusetts’s 6th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.

Since Election Day, I’ve learned two things about the Democratic Party: The word police will continue to patrol no matter how badly we lose, and a growing number of us are finally ready to move beyond them to start winning again.

Two days after Donald Trump’s victory, I gave an example of how Democrats spend too much time trying not to offend anyone, even on issues where most Americans feel the same way. Speaking as a dad, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/14/moulton-trans-women-sports/" target=_blank>I said</a> I didn’t like the idea of my two girls one day competing against biological boys on a playing field. My main point, though, is what I said next: “As a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

The blowback, which was swift, included the chair of a local Democratic committee calling me a <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2024/11/15/salem-dems-reportedly-working-to-find-moulton-challenger/" target="_blank">Nazi “cooperator</a>” and about 200 people gathering in front of my office to protest a sentence. My unimpeachable record of standing up for the civil rights of all Americans, including the trans community, was irrelevant.

What has amazed me, though, is what’s happening behind the scenes. Countless Democrats have reached out, from across the party — to thank me. I’ve heard it again and again, from union leaders to colleagues in the House and Senate; from top people from the Obama, Biden and Harris teams to local Democrats stopping me on the street; from fellow dads to many in the LGBTQ+ community: “Thank you for saying that!”

The question of whether to have reasonable restrictions on transgender women’s participation in women’s sports wasn’t their point — though most agree — just as it wasn’t mine. They were simply glad that a fellow Democrat would violate the moratorium on speaking our minds. Voters want elected officials to give voice to their concerns, not tell them what they should think.

Until not so long ago, we were the party of free speech. We welcomed real, rigorous debate when orthodox conservatives in the Republican Party were afraid of change. We raised the struggles of the working class to become national issues.

That’s how we delivered Social Security and Medicare when wealthy Americans already had good health care and retirement savings. That’s how we protected people with preexisting conditions under Obamacare, against staunch Republican opposition. And it’s how we expanded freedoms by allowing women to make their own health-care decisions and everyone to marry whomever they love, changing the status quo.

In every case, we listened, we built trust, and we welcomed those who disagreed into our expanding tent — the definition of a majority party. Just 12 years ago, we even nominated a Democrat who was against same-sex marriage for president.

Independents and Republicans see what we do to fellow Democrats who disagree with the party line. Why would they think they’d have a prayer with us?

Often when Americans think differently, or raise concerns we don’t agree with, we go straight to denial. Two years ago, I asked a House colleague who wanted to lead our messaging strategy how we should address the southern border. “We should not talk about immigration!” I was told. Republicans are just “weaponizing” the issue, so, if we respond, we are “playing into their hands.” Another version: Trump is “just tapping into fear and resentment.”

But it turns out that voters knew better, and wanted answers. When <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/02/15/how-americans-view-the-situation-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-its-causes-and-consequences/" target=_blank>94 percent</a> of Americans said they worried about the border crisis, Trump said he’d fix it.

Trump, for all his bluster and lies, sees and understands real fears. When Americans worried <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/24/what-the-data-says-about-crime-in-the-us/sr_24-04-23_crime_1/" target="_blank">about crime</a>, he promised to support cops (even though his White House budget <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/16/21286669/donald-trump-is-defunding-the-police" target="_blank">didn’t deliver</a>). Some Democrats, meanwhile, called to “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/which-lawmakers-support-defunding-police-1510556" target="_blank">defund the police</a>.” When voters said they were tired of violence, shoplifting and a growing sense of disorder in their communities, some of us <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/overall-crime-decreased-2020-united-states-report-finds-n1278938" target="_blank">held up</a> national and historical (i.e., irrelevant) data to prove their feelings were wrong.

As grocery prices soared, the Biden administration told us not to worry because it was “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-12/yellen-sticks-with-transitory-view-of-higher-u-s-inflation?embedded-checkout=true" target="_blank">transitory</a>,” whatever that means. About two-thirds of Americans went on to say that inflation caused moderate or severe <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/609221/economic-mood-improves-inflation-vexing-americans.aspx" target="_blank">financial hardship</a> in their lives. Trump made lowering inflation a cornerstone of his campaign, a key message regardless of what his policies <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/30/companies-tariffs-trump-prices/" target="_blank">will actually do</a>.

When Democrats don’t engage honestly on real issues important to Americans, we give the impression that we either don’t understand or, worse yet, simply don’t care. According to <a href="https://blueprint2024.com/polling/why-trump-reasons-11-8/" target=_blank>one exit poll</a>, the No. 1 reason swing voters chose Trump was “Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.”

Worse, when we remain silent in the face of GOP attacks rather than decisively putting them to bed and moving on, as when the Harris campaign went weeks without even acknowledging Trump’s devastating <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/22/trump-republican-transgender-strategy-advertisements/" target=_blank>anti-trans ad</a>, not only do we lose elections, but these issues get defined and decided entirely on Republican terms. There’s no greater disservice to the people whose rights we claim to want to protect.

This should have been an easy election for Democrats. We lost the White House to a felon who has alienated many of the Republican faithful. Republicans are so dysfunctional that they couldn’t even elect a speaker of the House for three weeks last year, another first in modern history.

But the American people voted for Trump because he articulated a vision, however twisted and unconscionable, for solving their problems and addressing their fears.

The good news for Democrats is that we have a proud history of raising the challenges of working Americans and helping solve them. We didn’t do this by telling voters what to think or how to feel, but by listening when they told us.

Seth Moulton

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Seth Moulton says Democrats need to start talking

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