Representative Seth Moulton (D., Mass.) cited identity politics as a contributing factor to his party’s electoral struggles this cycle as he acknowledged that he wouldn’t want men playing sports with his own daughters, but that he’s not allowed to say that as a Democrat.
“I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete,” Moulton told New York Times reporter Reid Epstein. “But as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”
Representative Tom Suozzi (D., N.Y.) came to a similar conclusion, saying that Democrats who won on Election Day did so by distancing themselves from the party’s radical positions on social issues.
“Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left. I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports,” Suozzi said, according to the New York Times. “Democrats aren’t saying that, and they should be.”
NewsNation host Chris Cuomo said Thursday that “wokeism run amok” had tanked Democrats’ electoral odds.
“You are forcing new social norms on people in this country,” Cuomo said. “‘No, I’m not, we’re just doing what’s fair. Trans people have rights too.’ Yes, but if it’s communicated as if you must be forced to accept and be indoctrinated with ideas that you do not share — is that fair? ‘That’s not what we were doing.’ That’s how they felt you were treating them about it. That’s the women in sports thing.”
But despite this staggering chart showing a rightward shift in all but two states, progressive Democrats have already begun blaming the loss on Harris’s failure to move further left.
The Justice Democrats have already called for a “new era” of the party, saying that “leaders in Congress like the Squad have shown us another way of doing politics is possible and represent the promise of uniting our fractured nation.”
Squad member Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) dismissed Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss as the product of misogyny among voters, rather than any missteps the campaign or the party made.
“Misogyny is very very real in this country,” she said in a rant on Instagram on Wednesday evening. “As another widely known woman of color in office, you know, I knew that sexism and racism were real, but it was not until I got subjected to a national stage that I actually was shocked at how bad it is.”