More and more people are tuning the news out: 'Now I don't have that anxiety

> But I regularly feel guilty about not being keyed in to the flirtations with/forays into authoritarianism in my country.

This really highlights that the threat of authoritarianism is really only a threat to certain people, which frankly is why authoritarianism happens.

Because if authoritarianism were an issue for you, you'd be reading the news. If POTUS were threatening to send troops into your streets to arrest people who look like you, that'd be something you'd want to be aware of yes? If he had a policy to detain people who look like you, and if he doesn't like your tattoos he'll send you to a foreign torture prison, you'd probably be very keen on paying attention to that kind of thing.

But since he's not threating you and yours specifically, you have the luxury of tuning out for your mental health while all that goes on. Until of course he comes for your ethnicity/religion/politics/profession. Although, I guess you won't know until that happens because you won't be reading the news.

Yeah, you know what I think I would have better mental health too if I could just tune out the daily missives from the abyss, but I need to stay on top of what words I'm not allowed to say at my job or else the government will target us for research defunding. Words like "equity" and anything that starts with the prefix "trans".

Consuming a 24/7 feed of doomerism media does nothing for fighting authoritarianism. It simply just gives ad revenue to oligarchs.

If you want to do something, get involved in local politics and groups, stay off social media where Facebook like activism does nothing.

Yes, some people benefit more from watching the news than others and therefore choose to.

Meanwhile some of aren't badly affected but care about the wellbeing of others so choose not to tune out to their detriment.

You know what, I’m going to donate $100 to the human rights campaign. But also, who says I’m tuning out? The powers causing all these problems are the ones that run the news, they’re showing you exactly what they want you to see. Feeling rather than doing.

Also, by nature of my environment, and I know a decent number of activists and they seem to be the ones who understand the futility of doomerism the most.

The GP comment was about tuning out, they mentioned feeling guilty for not following the rise of authoritarianism in their country. I was responding within that context.

Of course you can follow the news and still be mislead and of course you can keep to do date with what's happening in other ways, but tuning out and feeling guilty about it was what was explicitly being discussed as I understood it.

I then understood your comment within that context as being flippant about that kind of tuning it. However it seems we just got our wires crossed so apologies for my tone.