And yes, some Democrats have blamed the party’s allegiance to identity politics, and also the choice of the Harris campaign to leave unanswered the deluge of anti-trans ads it came from the Trump campaign.

“For the losing side, elections are a Rorschach test,” said Alexander Theodoridis, a political science professor at UMass Amherst. “Basically, you reinforce what you believed in advance. It goes from “should the Democratic Party have moved further to the left?” “I went further, didn’t I? » I heard both.

In Massachusetts, however, Moulton’s comments about trans student athletes dominated the debate. His argument aroused the anger of his Democratic colleagues in Massachusetts and denunciations of the state’s LGBTQ+ community, as well as a formal resolution from his hometown of Salem and asks him to resign. Others, including the state Republican Party, applauded his views.

Moulton remained steadfast. “The backlash proves my point,” the Democrat told reporters at a Veterans Day event in Marblehead on Monday, the fourth straight day in which he has addressed the press to defend his point of view. “Democrats have trouble even discussing difficult topics. … If you scapegoat everything because you don’t like the subject, how are we ever going to win again?”

Moulton said the media was hyper-focused on his comments about transgender athletes, when in reality his point was broader: the party needs to be more open to debate on controversial issues.

“I don’t think we’ll win on any issue if we can’t debate it,” he said, noting that he had heard from voters who agreed and even thanked him for it. having expressed his opinion.

Theodoridis said this type of introspection after an election is “pretty normal” although “pretty ugly.” One of the few times during his career he noticed a break in the trend was in 2020, when Trump denied losing the election at all.

“There’s a lot of feedback, a lot of bad takes and a lot of blame,” Theodoridis said. “It happens again and again.”

Anthony Cignoli, a Massachusetts-based consultant who has helped advise PACs and other groups in various states this election cycle, said the intra-party fallout from Moulton’s comments constitutes a best-case scenario for Trump and Republicans who spoke out against transgender issues. the campaign route.

Trump, who made attacking transgender Americans central to his campaign told a crowd during his rally at Madison Square Garden last month, “we will eliminate… transgender madness from our schools and we will prevent men from participating in women’s sports.” He also made blatantly false statements on children receiving gender-affirming medical treatments during the school day without her parents’ consent and aired anti-trans campaign ads to large audiences during the World Series this summer.

“It was unfortunately an easy target for (Trump),” Cignoli said. “And here we are, a week later, and this is now what the Democratic Party is struggling with and talking about?”

Liam Kerr, co-founder of Welcome Party, a nonprofit organization aimed at promoting a comprehensive vision of the Democratic Party, said he agreed with Moulton’s view that party activists are too quick to silence critics or stick to traditional party arguments. The party proved it was not united enough to win, and he said those on the far left were “creating unproductive conflict, keeping the issue front and center.”

“There are many ways to be pragmatic,” he said. “But activists want there to be only one way to be progressive. And that’s not just a problem for advocates, it’s a problem for those they claim to represent.”

Democrats to Moulton’s left offered very different assessments of their party’s mistakes and the path forward.

US Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose presidential campaign was built on the fact that she “had a plan for everything”, released a “response plan” in Time Magazine THURSDAY.

Although Harris “deserves credit for running an inspiring campaign under unprecedented circumstances,” Warren wrote, she urged Democrats to “unlock the economy” to win back working-class voters.

She called on Democrats to step up their oversight efforts in Congress, fight Trump in court, get involved at the local level and, most urgently, for the Senate to use the remaining time before the inauguration of the new Congress to confirm federal judges and keys. regulators while they still have power.

His assessment was similar, though less scathing, to that offered by progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders, who has drawn criticism in recent days for disparaging party leadership, wrote in a Globe opinion piece On Sunday, “Democrats lost this election because they ignored the justified anger of the American working class and became defenders of a rigged economic and political system.”

The two New England senators’ views on the election, which align well with their personal policy preferences, show how lawmakers have fallen back on their party factions as they assign blame for Democrats’ crushing losses .

Rep. Jake Auchincloss, another moderate Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, told the Globe on Monday that in his district — where one of the largest cities, Fall River — voted for a Republican for the first time for a century – there was “a feeling that Democrats are not working for them.”

Asked for Moulton’s assessment of where Democrats were missing the mark, Auchincloss declined to directly address his colleague’s view.

“We certainly need to be able to have difficult conversations as a party,” he said. “I’m actually less worried about where Democrats are debating, and I’m more worried about where they seem to strongly agree.”

He pushed back against what he saw as Democrats seeking to “intensify economic populism” and warned against “any attempt to reverse course toward a MAGA-lite party.” The party, he said, needs to come up with a “more authentic agenda,” which would include things like balancing the budget, securing the southern border and building more affordable housing.

Members of the LGTBQ+ community said that ultimately, by pointing the finger at the transgender community, regardless of their motivations, Moulton was playing a role in the GOP’s agenda, rather than effectively criticizing that of Democrats.

“You joined (the Trump agenda),” Giselle Byrd, a trans advocate and executive director of The Theater Offensive in Boston, said of Moulton. “Congressman Moulton’s comments are not only full of transphobia, they also send an alarmist message across the country, at a time when we are already experiencing it.

Matt Stout and Anjali Huynh Globe staff contributed to this report.

Samantha J. Gross can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @samanthajgross. Anjali Huynh can be contacted at [email protected].