Ed Markey beats Seth Moulton, to win Democratic nomination in Massachusetts' Senate primary

Ed Markey is 79 years old and has now outlasted another young challenger promising generational change. Seth Moulton ran on the idea that Massachusetts Democrats might actually want someone born after the moon landing representing them in the Senate. They said no. Again.

This is the pattern nationally, and it's worth sitting with for a second. Every cycle, some Democratic strategist writes a think piece about how the party needs new blood, younger faces, fresh energy to compete with a GOP that's actually building a bench. Then primary voters turn around and renominate the incumbent who's been in Washington since Gerald Ford was president. Markey first won a House seat in 1976. He has now spent essentially his entire adult life inside the Capitol building, and the voters of Massachusetts just told a decorated Marine combat veteran with an actual record to sit down and wait his turn.

The funniest part is the framing in the coverage itself, that Democrats are showing "an increasing appetite for change" right before reporting that they picked the guy who's been in Congress for nearly five decades. Nobody in that state party seems to notice the contradiction, or maybe they just don't care, because Markey's brand is safe and Moulton occasionally said things that annoyed the base.

If this is what change looks like in the bluest state in the country, it tells you something about how hollow that word has become in Democratic politics. They'll keep talking about a new generation right up until the moment an actual member of one shows up on the ballot.