I think a lot about what Mr. Rogers said and did when he accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1997 Emmys:
As @TomJunod so beautifully put it in @esquire's November 1998 issue:

web.archive.org/web/2003030118…
In his final broadcast, Mr. Rogers said:

"I know how tough it is some days to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead. But I would like to tell you what I often told you when you were much younger. I like you just the way you are."
So many of us on here grew up with Mr. Rogers / Mister Rogers. (I know I did.)

He wouldn't want us to politicize him. He loved all of us, just the way we are. There are no politics in his neighborhood.
Wow, this blew up. To clarify — I think there’s a big difference between doing THE RIGHT THING and politics.

Mr. Rogers used his show to oppose segregation and multiple wars. His moral compass was not guided by political party or affiliation.
Every subtle (or not that subtle) “political” / “radical” thing he did on his show was because he truly believed that it was the right thing to do, not because he was following a political party’s marching orders.

This story gets into that: salon.com/2018/06/21/new…
When I say Mr. Rogers wouldn’t want us to politicize him, I mean that I don’t think he would want himself to be aligned with a certain political party.

He was a registered Republican but in his show, and on occasion publicly, he was clearly against the party’s policies/actions.
The current American political climate is incredibly partisan and polarizing (the whole reason we're here is that a comparison to Mr. Rogers was made as a dig at a presidential candidate!).

Mr. Rogers did what he thought was right. That's not apolitical — it's nonpartisan.
TL;DR of what I tried and failed to say in my original tweet: Mr. Rogers' neighborhood was political, but not partisan.

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More from @ellievhall

14 Oct
Shoutout to all the people who've chosen not to attend a small family gathering in a pandemic and are being guilt-tripped for it!
Here's the story: cnn.com/2020/10/14/hea…
In case you may need more things to forward along to those who don't understand why you're following CDC guidelines in a pandemic: washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advi…
Read 4 tweets
30 May
I’m outside the White House with @kadiagoba, covering tonight’s protests in Washington, DC for @BuzzFeedNews:

#DCprotest #GeorgeFloydProtests
Police / Secret Service have closed off Lafayette Square Park (park in front of White House) and 16th street (which leads to it). Huge law enforcement presence:
A few minutes ago, protesters tore down one of the fences around Lafayette Square Park and tear gas was deployed.

Police have moved up closer to the protesters now. #dcprotests #georgefloydprotests
Read 32 tweets
13 Jan
Compare These 20 Headlines To See How Differently Royal Reporters Treated Kate Middleton And Meghan Markle: buzzfeednews.com/article/elliev…
THREAD: I've been reading about / covering the royal family for years + I've been thinking about publishing a piece like this for a while now. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've read thousands of headlines/stories about the royals, particularly about Kate, over the years.
When Meghan came on the scene, I noticed a bit of a slow shift in terms of stories that were written. Don't get me wrong. There have been "why is this a story" stories written about Kate — TONS of them, but they were always fluffier? Silly, maybe. But not obviously negative.
Read 13 tweets
2 Dec 19
#MuellerMemos: Hope Hicks told the FBI about an incident where she received a 3am phone call from a "foreign person" with a 202 (DC) area code —

"Hicks had a hard time understanding the person but she could make out the words 'Putin call'" (pg 203)
The person on the other end of the line was Sergey Kuznetsov, an official at the Russian embassy.

After the call, he sent Hope Hicks this email with the subject line "Extremely urgent message from president putin"

The email was sent at 4:06am on 11/9/2016
#MuellerMemos (244)
Hope Hicks told the FBI that Trump was "angry, surprised, and frustrated" the day Mueller was appointed special counsel, and that she had only seen him like this on one other occasion — when the Access Hollywood tape came out during the campaign:
#MuellerMemos (221)
Read 9 tweets
2 Aug 19
I published my story about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, guest-editing the September issue of British Vogue 3 hours ago and I already have a reader email in my inbox referring to her as "a half breed American mediocre actress."
To be clear, I'm not surprised.

I write about the royal family quite frequently (lol) and nearly every time I post something about Meghan, I get reader emails attacking her — and me for daring to write about her.
This reader email was in response to the post I did about baby Archie's christening photos:
Read 6 tweets

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