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Maggie Downs

@maggiedowns

Author of BRAVER THAN YOU THINK and the forthcoming 50 THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU’RE FIVE. Really good at traveling and coffee-ing.

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30.07.2023
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Latest posts by Maggie Downs @maggiedowns

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With arms linked and snow falling, Minneapolis ICE protesters dance as ICE agents retreat back. "Nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye!" WATCH ⬇️

17.01.2026 03:34 👍 22159 🔁 5943 💬 625 📌 366

There are violent extremists on the left but they are not in charge of the party. You can find them on social media, not in the halls of power.

The violent extremists on the right are in congress, on courts, and sitting in the Oval Office.

11.09.2025 13:48 👍 12497 🔁 4011 💬 334 📌 250
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How often do we assign an entire imagined role—sometimes a villainous one—to a stranger? In @maggiedowns.bsky.social's essay, a group hike on the Inca Trail comes w both thinning air and thinning patience before things take a surprising turn.

Read here: buff.ly/jC7Fjma

13.07.2025 21:37 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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The air was thin and the effort arduous on the Inca Trail. To make matters worse, another hiker ahead of @maggiedowns.bsky.social seemed to taunt her by carrying two backpacks. Why two? The answer, when revealed, left the author floored, just as it leaves readers breathless: buff.ly/C1ns1TM

02.07.2025 16:11 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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@maggiedowns.bsky.social and @zackbornstein.bsky.social

I think we need to give this one more shot. Third time’s the charm, right?! We ride at dawn…I’ll bring farro and the kale.
Although, maybe we need breakfast tacos and coffee instead this time?

13.06.2025 04:58 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Phew, for a Minute There, I Thought the Arts Were Going to Get Too Much Funding “Dozens of US arts organizations have been notified that offers of government grants have been terminated, hours after Donald Trump proposed elimin...

"Finally—finally!—we can reroute those dangerous funds from writing workshops and elementary school jazz ensembles into more important things. Like tax breaks for billionaires. And tanks."

06.05.2025 15:26 👍 121 🔁 29 💬 1 📌 3

If there’s anything the past 24 hours have taught me, it’s that my group chats are boring

25.03.2025 20:40 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Last Friday afternoon, I got my first message from Ryan Daniels, public affairs manager of strategic response at Meta. When I declined his invitation to talk by phone, he wrote back again: “I was wondering if the Washington Post was going to write a review about a book that’s coming out this upcoming week on Meta. Do you have a couple minutes to chat?”

So, I called. Daniels said, “We don’t have the book,” but the company had prepared “preliminary statements” about it. Although he didn’t share those with me, he wrote to me again on Saturday and again on Monday trying to get information about our review plans. (In my 27 years of reviewing and editing newspaper books sections, no company has ever done this with me.)

Last Friday afternoon, I got my first message from Ryan Daniels, public affairs manager of strategic response at Meta. When I declined his invitation to talk by phone, he wrote back again: “I was wondering if the Washington Post was going to write a review about a book that’s coming out this upcoming week on Meta. Do you have a couple minutes to chat?” So, I called. Daniels said, “We don’t have the book,” but the company had prepared “preliminary statements” about it. Although he didn’t share those with me, he wrote to me again on Saturday and again on Monday trying to get information about our review plans. (In my 27 years of reviewing and editing newspaper books sections, no company has ever done this with me.)

Yesterday, when I reached out to Daniels for a response from Meta, he wrote back: “Do you plan to write something about it, or are you just curious how we’re responding?” 

It’s always about controlling the narrative. But apparently, that’s not going so well. This morning, “Careless People” is No. 3 on Amazon. 

I know this is a long item, the longest I’ve ever written for the Book Club newsletter. But when one of the world’s most powerful media companies tries to snuff out a book — amid other alarming attacks on free speech in America like this — it’s time to pull out all the stops.

Yesterday, when I reached out to Daniels for a response from Meta, he wrote back: “Do you plan to write something about it, or are you just curious how we’re responding?” It’s always about controlling the narrative. But apparently, that’s not going so well. This morning, “Careless People” is No. 3 on Amazon. I know this is a long item, the longest I’ve ever written for the Book Club newsletter. But when one of the world’s most powerful media companies tries to snuff out a book — amid other alarming attacks on free speech in America like this — it’s time to pull out all the stops.

WaPo's Ron Charles, in his Book Club newsletter, on Meta's repeated questions about his plans to review Sarah Wynn-Williams's "Careless People":

"In my 27 years of reviewing and editing newspaper books sections, no company has ever done this with me."

14.03.2025 17:12 👍 2788 🔁 914 💬 93 📌 237

It feels like if you shut down four airports by blowing up your science project, you should go to jail?

07.03.2025 04:24 👍 2203 🔁 482 💬 45 📌 5
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War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon's DEI purge References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and women and minorites are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts ma...

The US military has removed photos of the B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” — which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan — apparently because it contains the word “gay,” which violates their new anti-DEI rules.

07.03.2025 02:08 👍 15626 🔁 5251 💬 1686 📌 1852

These ten Democrats should just quit. To censure Green when there have never been consequences for MTG for egregious behavior whereas Green was protesting fascism. We are drowning in shit.

06.03.2025 15:52 👍 5245 🔁 965 💬 98 📌 45

Thank you! 1,000 words down. Time to go for a walk.

06.03.2025 15:54 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

About to get through yet another day by creating fictional people in my head and writing a rom-com about it

06.03.2025 14:46 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

JD Vance strikes me as the guy who leaves his shopping cart in a parking space because “it’ll give the workers something to do”

06.03.2025 02:51 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Sadly, I did that very thing — and ended up in a debate on FB. It’s the worst to realize this is what they wanted

01.03.2025 23:58 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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A reminder for these times.

01.03.2025 22:24 👍 82606 🔁 17699 💬 648 📌 451

Started to type “it’s so fucked up that” and then I realized I didn’t even know how to finish that sentence right now

01.03.2025 15:06 👍 149 🔁 8 💬 13 📌 1

Would it be possible for all of us to get a restraining order against this administration? I’m not joking.

27.02.2025 23:28 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
a sign at a vet front desk indicating that it has been 0 days since a dog pooped in the lobby

a sign at a vet front desk indicating that it has been 0 days since a dog pooped in the lobby

2025 vibes at the vet

25.02.2025 23:59 👍 167 🔁 8 💬 8 📌 1

I know this is the least of his crimes, but that dude has no taste

26.02.2025 14:34 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

This is actually good news, frustrating as it is. People are so bad at thinking abstractly about risk, but as soon as a threat becomes real, they’ll act in the best interests of their children. It would be great if the rest of the country could see this and do the same!

26.02.2025 13:31 👍 83 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0

Quit buying shit, write poems, live más

25.02.2025 17:23 👍 480 🔁 94 💬 6 📌 10
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Don’t Tread on Me—Unless You’re a Billionaire with a Ketamine Addiction, in Which Case I Enthusiastically Support It Listen, I don’t know how to say this, but I think I’m finally okay with being trodden on. Just a little. Just enough to feel the reassuring weight ...

"I trust this guy. He’s not like the others. When the government tracks you, that’s tyranny. When a billionaire does it? That’s innovation."

21.02.2025 19:30 👍 310 🔁 79 💬 4 📌 3
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Don’t Tread on Me—Unless You’re a Billionaire with a Ketamine Addiction, in Which Case I Enthusiastically Support It Listen, I don’t know how to say this, but I think I’m finally okay with being trodden on. Just a little. Just enough to feel the reassuring weight ...

What if, instead of fearing the iron fist of Big Brother, I actually feared the absence of a billionaire’s firm, guiding hand?

My latest for McSweeney’s

www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/don...

21.02.2025 18:46 👍 7 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 1
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DOT says it will tie funding to birth, marriage rates The agency issued a memo after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy authorized a series of actions to advance Trump’s agenda.

With all the other news, it’s easy to have overlooked this story about the Department of Transportation prioritizing communities with higher marriage and birth rates 🙃
finance.yahoo.com/news/dot-say...

04.02.2025 06:10 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Murphy: "This is a constitutional crisis that we are in today. Let's call it what it is."

03.02.2025 18:26 👍 67400 🔁 17443 💬 2361 📌 1327

What do you suppose our well-regulated militia is doing these days

03.02.2025 06:00 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Being a rapist wasn’t a dealbreaker. Being a convicted felon wasn’t a dealbreaker. Attempting to overturn an election by inciting an insurrection wasn’t a dealbreaker. The racism, the sexism, the inexhaustible idiocy … none of it mattered.

But now that money is on the line? Let’s see who flips

02.02.2025 23:43 👍 11 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
End of Term Web Archive – Preserving the Transition of a Nation | Internet Archive Blogs

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...

01.02.2025 00:58 👍 32976 🔁 12184 💬 482 📌 581
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Declassified CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism Is Suddenly Viral The World War II-era "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" is full of steps that office workers can take to resist leadership.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a declassified World War II-era CIA guide to sabotaging fascism in the workplace has become one of the most popular free ebooks on the internet:

www.404media.co/declassified...

29.01.2025 20:53 👍 67090 🔁 27502 💬 1217 📌 1882