Sidhi Dhanda, a rising junior at Harvard University, is an intern in Globe Opinion.
When I was in elementary school, my dad often drove from Longmeadow, a suburb of Springfield, to Boston. I asked him why he drove instead of taking a plane. He said there were no planes. I then asked about the train. He said that the train option was inconvenient and slow. He told me that there were plans for a better, faster train connecting Springfield to Boston.
Today, almost 15 years later, the same plan has yet to be delivered.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently as I wrestle with who to vote for in the upcoming Massachusetts Senate primary between Senator Ed Markey and his challenger, Representative Seth Moulton.
The train issue is one of the few policy areas where Markey and Moulton disagree. Markey is a proponent of the West-East Rail — a plan that has been in the works for more than 30 years — while Moulton wants a high-speed rail connecting Springfield to Boston that will make the trip in 40 minutes, down from the current 2 hours and 20 minutes. The train proposal Markey supports, meanwhile, will still take two hours, not much of an improvement.
This difference captures why I, a young person, am voting for Moulton over Markey, even though many people my age are sticking with Markey because of how progressive he is. Of course, I am not voting for Moulton just because I want high-speed rail, but this issue does help explain why I support him.
Markey has been in Washington for half a century. I don’t think that alone is disqualifying, and I don’t want to make this about someone’s age. To paraphrase Markey’s own words, I want to talk about the age of his ideas. Some of Markey’s ideas have aged out.
For example, the West-East Rail made sense when it was first proposed decades ago, but it makes far less sense today. Other countries have shown that high-speed rail is possible and a better solution.
The same is true for some of Markey’s other ideas. I support the goal behind Medicare for All: Everyone should be able to access affordable quality health care. But I question whether continuing to pursue Medicare for All at the federal level is the best way to get there, given how politically unachievable it is. In contrast, Moulton supports a public option for health care, which is seen as having bipartisan appeal.
This is what I mean by ideas aging out. The best idea 30 years ago is no longer the best, not because the goal isn’t noble but because technology has enabled better solutions, or the country has changed so much that an idea that was once possibly feasible simply no longer is.
At some point, legislators have to do more than just discuss the ideal policies. They have to figure out what can be enacted and make real progress. I would rather see a senator try to pursue ambitious, achievable steps than spend another term talking about a policy that remains politically out of reach. I believe that Moulton can be this type of legislator, given the passage of his bipartisan National Suicide Hotline Designation Act and his emphasis on working with people on both sides of the aisle.
Moulton is not my dream candidate, and I don’t agree with him on everything. However, in him, I see a candidate who can make sure the Democratic Party has ideas that make sense for a changing 21st century, like trains that use modern technology and investing in nuclear energy research. None of that has anything to do with his age.
At a time when there is so much discussion about artificial intelligence and its broader impacts, I find the small number of senators with a STEM background to be jarring (there is one engineer, four physicians, and one geologist).
I like the idea of my senator being able to understand AI and how it works. I do feel that sort of expertise is necessary to craft smart policy and get others on board with it. Moulton, a physics major, has this. His physics background also makes his pro-nuclear energy stance and call for party members to follow the science all the more authoritative.
Additionally, Moulton has a sense of what kind of Democrat can attract folks to the party. Through the Serve America PAC, Moulton supported Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill in their campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey. Both candidates flipped a red seat blue.
His fresh policy ideas, background, and willingness to challenge Democrats to think beyond bumper sticker slogans excite me. He has a vision for the next 20 years that has kept up with a rapidly changing world on many fronts.
In my senior year of high school, I took AP Government, and I learned about the different ways people vote, in particular retrospective and prospective voting. Retrospective voters think about a candidate’s past accomplishments — no doubt Markey has many to be proud of. Prospective voters think about the future.
This election, I’m thinking about the future. I don’t want to live in a future where, in 20 years, kids ask me about a train from Springfield to Boston and my answer is that leaders are still discussing the same idea from 20 years before I was born.