My mental health is noticeably better, and I would readily attribute this to not being tuned in to the ongoings of the globe that I have zero control over. Instead, I have been more focused on my local life and community.
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".
If you want to do something, get involved in local politics and groups, stay off social media where Facebook like activism does nothing.