Elaine Godfrey
covering Dems and 2020 for . Iowan, ISU grad. Send tips or very good dogs to egodfrey at theatlantic dot com. DM me for Signal
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The Resistance Is Just Warming Up
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 134d 8 tweets
How anti-Trump women in America’s suburbs are ushering in a new era of political activism
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Elaine Godfrey Americans know the bigger story by now: how hatred for Trump has spurred women to vote for Dems across the country. But these women are channeling their energy toward smaller targets too, and that activism is shaping politics in a really important way. 134d
What COVID-19 Families Hear When Trump Brags About His Strength
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 140d 2 tweets
With each dismissive comment he makes about his own experience with the virus, the president minimizes the suffering of an ever-growing share of Americans.
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Elaine Godfrey The thing that makes losing a loved one to COVID-19 so painful is the persistent sense of regret. For not bringing them home earlier, for not being there to hold their hand, for leaving them alone. My family feels it, and so do thousands of others. 140d
The People Trump Is Coming Home To
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 150d 13 tweets
The president’s behavior threatens the very employees charged with taking care of him.
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Elaine Godfrey The president interacts with dozens of WH employees every day—butlers, valets, cooks, housekeepers. Because of his months-long failure to take COVID-19 seriously even inside his own home, Trump has put them all at risk. My story with 150d
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Elaine Godfrey Working in the WH residence is VERY prestigious. But not only that: Many need to work a certain number of years to receive their pension. They likely won’t risk being fired by speaking up about unsafe conditions or calling out of work, one expert told us. 150d
To Be the Vice President Right Now
McKay Coppins - The Atlantic 152d 11 tweets
Mike Pence has aspired to the Oval Office since he was a teenager—and now he’s closer than ever before.
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Elaine Godfrey "This is a man who’s been dreaming of the White House since his fraternity days in college; a man who believes, according to friends, that divine forces have conspired to place him within a heartbeat of the presidency." 152d
Why the Iowa Senate Race Is Suddenly Competitive
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 242d 3 tweets
Theresa Greenfield’s strategy to defeat Joni Ernst could show Democrats how to swing rural America away from the GOP.
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Elaine Godfrey Joni Ernst and Theresa Greenfield faced off tonight in their first debate. Here's my piece on Greenfield's campaign, if you're just tuning into the race 157d
The Democrats’ Supreme Court Hail Mary
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 157d 1 tweets
This is the progressive case for court packing in a nutshell: “If your wallet is stolen, you don’t forgo efforts to recover it just because it might be stolen again.”
Is This Really the End of Abortion?
Emma Green - The Atlantic 163d 2 tweets
Democrats might crush Republicans in November. With a 6–3 conservative Supreme Court majority, abortion rights could still be decimated.
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Elaine Godfrey The thought of victory so close at hand “makes my heart race and my spirit soar,” told . 163d
This Is the Future That Liberals Want
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 168d 1 tweets
Say the Democrats win. Then what?
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Elaine Godfrey Democrats feel like, come January, the appetite for political reform will be even higher than it already is. “To move a progressive agenda, we need to restore faith in government," told me. 168d
Sean McElwee Is Begging the Left to Grow Up
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 169d 23 tweets
The progressive pollster has a simple message for his compatriots: Rigid doctrinarianism doesn’t win elections.
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Elaine Godfrey My story on Sean McElwee, Joe Biden, and the future of the progressive movement 169d
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Elaine Godfrey McElwee's theory of change is basically: Left-wing candidates—especially in red districts—should run on popular ideas to build trust for more ambitious ones. Things like clean energy, paid family leave, generic drug licensing, free two-year college. 168d
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Elaine Godfrey “The Venn diagram of people with a pretty radical analysis [of politics] who are devoted to operational electoral politics is pretty small,” told me. Sean McElwee “is in that space.” 168d
The Violence Could Get Much Worse
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 189d 10 tweets
Unless police and political leaders begin to crack down on the armed vigilantes monitoring protests, more bloodshed could soon follow the killings in Kenosha.
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Elaine Godfrey Consistent leniency from law enforcement surrounding this kind of vigilante violence “has created a monster that’s going to be hard to contain." New, from me 189d
Democrats’ Unprecedented Embrace of Gun Control
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 196d 3 tweets
The party is betting that support for restrictions is more likely to attract moderate voters than turn them off.
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Elaine Godfrey Back in February, I went to a Bloomberg event in the suburbs, where a few dozen self-described moderates and former Republicans told me they prized stability and civility in politics. But gun control was an issue that got them really riled up. 196d
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Elaine Godfrey I met Rebecca Boldrick Hogg, the mother of Parkland survivor David Hogg, in Feb. She said she couldn't bring herself to support Sanders because of his once-moderate record on guns. Her vote, like many other moderate Democrats', hinges on this issue. 195d
Sanders Supporters Realize Their Party Is Bigger Than They Are
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 198d 2 tweets
The parade of GOP defectors speaking on the DNC’s first night seemed to confirm progressives’ worst fears about a potential Biden administration.
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Elaine Godfrey Assembling a broad base of ideologically diverse supporters is how elections are won. But progressives worry that the Democrats' tent has gotten way too big. New, from me 198d
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Elaine Godfrey “Democrats have become a more moderate party in the past four years, because there’s a new name for suburban Republicans who don’t like Trump—and that’s Democrats,” told me. 197d
Give Kamala Harris a Break
Peter Beinart - The Atlantic 206d 5 tweets
In attacking her record on crime policy, critics ignore how politics actually works.
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Elaine Godfrey "The fact that Harris didn’t boldly confront police misconduct earlier in her career says less about her than about the country in which she lived." Interesting read from 206d
Iowa governor says students won't receive credit if school districts defy 50% mandate on in-person classes
Des Moines Register - Des Moines Register 212d 1 tweets
"If schools move to primarily remote learning without approval, according again to the law, those days do not count toward instructional time."
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Elaine Godfrey In Iowa we always start school in mid-to-late August (often on my birthday, actually). That means a lot of kids are going back to school in person—with no statewide mask requirement—in a couple of weeks. 212d
How to Lose a Swing State
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 222d 4 tweets
Arizona is moving left. But the state GOP chair, Kelli Ward, is doubling down on Trumpism.
Forgiving George Wallace
Nytimes.com 229d 9 tweets
Op-Ed article by US Repr John Lewis, leader of civil rights movement in Alabama in 1950's and 1960's, says despite his failings, former Alabama Gov George George Wallace who died recently at age 79 deserves recognition for seeking redemption for his...
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Elaine Godfrey I can't stop thinking about this piece. '"...we are better as a nation because of our capacity to forgive and to acknowledge that our political leaders are human and largely a reflection of the social currents in the river of history." 223d
Larry Hogan Isn’t Coming to Save the Republican Party
McKay Coppins - The Atlantic 224d 16 tweets
The governor of Maryland is betting his future on a kinder, gentler post-Trump GOP. Good luck with that.
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Elaine Godfrey "But figures like Hogan have a history of attracting more column inches than votes in Republican presidential primaries. (See: John Kasich, Jon Huntsman, assorted other Jo(h)ns.)" 224d
The Michigan Democrat Who Doesn’t Believe the Polls
Elaine Godfrey - The Atlantic 226d 3 tweets
Representative Debbie Dingell warned her party about Donald Trump’s appeal four years ago. Here’s what she’s afraid of this time around.
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Elaine Godfrey "I don’t trust polling," told me. "I don’t believe that Biden is 16 points up in Michigan; that’s a bullshit poll, and it’s the same people who said Hillary had it in the bag." 226d
Artificial Lights Tell the Story of the Pandemic
Marina Koren - The Atlantic 239d 4 tweets
Satellite views of Earth at night reveal the distinct imprint of humankind’s response to a fast-spreading virus.
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Elaine Godfrey "From a satellite’s perspective, Earth at night, under cloudless conditions, is, in normal times, a navy-blue marble with a dusting of gold..." 239d
AFI Docs series | “White Noise” brushes searing portrait of American white nationalism
Screen Comment 260d 2 tweets
(during all of this week, Screen Comment's Eric Althoff gives readers his take on the choicest films from the 2020 crop of AFI Docs, the world's premier documentary film festival which took place online this year due to the coronavirus) A more...
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Elaine Godfrey "A scathing damnation of white supremacy and hypocrisy, Lombroso’s 'White Noise' is among the year’s best films, a shoo-in for an Oscar nod for best documentary." I am getting so HYPED for this! 259d