Should I avoid or engage in current news right now?

I don't pay attention to the news (haven't for many years now) and I firmly believe it's okay that I don't.

I also don't vote because, at this point, I'd consider myself the definition of an uninformed voter.

You're essentially keeping yourself ignorant, and then saying you're too ignorant to take action. Just ridiculous.

So much of what's presented by the media doesn't impact my day-to-day life in the slightest.

Trump was elected and as a direct result: Roe was overturned, pregnant women are having their lives risked over non-viable pregnancies, others are forced to have children they don't want, gun control has been struck down, Christian Nationalism is heavily asserting itself at a time when fewer and fewer people are religious, the pandemic was bungled leading to thousands and thousands of unnecessary deaths, $2t was given away to the uber-wealthy, air and water quality standards were rolled back, ultra-conservative judges have been instituting national bans from the 5th circuit, gay and trans rights have been rolled back...and on and on...and that's without getting to all the states banning books and destroying the social safety net.

I guess you could not be a woman, not know a woman, not care about getting shot, or know anyone who you don't want to see get shot, like oppressive religious tenets foisted upon you, not worry about dying of communicable disease, or know anyone that you wouldn't want to see die of communicable disease, be ok with your tax dollars being given to the rich, and not be gay or trans or care about anyone who is....but you must at least breath air and drink water, right?

It all affects you, you're just too ignorant to realize how. Your apathy and indifference are what allows shitty people to hurt others. But if you don't care about that, no one can force you.

For a lot of people, elections (particularly national elections) don't impact their day to day life. For some, though, the outcome of those national elections are very important. If you are, for example, trans, national elections around this time could alter the course of the trans civil rights movement. The president with their power to veto may be the only one capable of halting anti-trans bills if conservatives have a slim majority in the Senate and House. That's why many trans people must concern themselves with politics and current events, must know what platforms candidates are running on and how the public is responding, must know what to expect and plan for the worst. Likewise with state and local elections, which may radically alter the life plans of a trans person. Thus, a trans person must know what's happening now, what will happen next, and what they can expect for the future

The same applies to the right to abortion, or access to Healthcare for those dealing with long-term illness, or those attempting to unionize for better working conditions. When these things affect you directly, and when candidates are running on taking away the protections you need, you can't afford to live in blissful ignorance.

So please, if you care about any of these groups, do spend a little time getting up to speed and drawing your own conclusions so you can vote in a way that you believe will improve the lives of your fellow citizens

Friends of mine who are not news watchers asked me about this when Trump was first elected -- their question was more or less: People seem like they're freaking out about this. Is this actually a big deal? Is this actually going to impact my life in any way?

I thought about it a little bit, and said that I thought there was about a 30% chance that Trump was going to fuck something up in such a dramatic fashion that it would actually impact their lives in an unavoidable way. I mean, the 70% doesn't mean he has no impact (someone getting a job or not, or the pay for the job, or the rent they pay, can be impacted very substantially by this indirect process that actually does root back to "the government" -- but it takes a while, and there are a lot of local and personal factors too, and "the government" is a lot bigger and more complex than just who is president, etc). But you can kind of ignore all of that and continue with your life, and the amount of time and energy it would take to get involved (as opposed to just taking what comes) is maybe pretty significant.

In retrospect I think the 30% was a pretty good prediction. For all the impact he may have had on people somewhere else in the world, he made it about 70% of the way through his term before Covid hit, and then the way he fucked up the response definitely impacted our lives on an individual level. I know people whose family members died. It's hard to say that they wouldn't have if Trump hadn't been in office, but his "let's all keep going to work, it'll probably blow over, feel free to punch anyone who wants you to wear a mask" response definitely increased the death toll significantly.

I think the chance this time around that Trump would have no individual-level impact is close to 0%. I know someone who's deep in the conservative rabbit hole, get all his news and picture of the world from TikTok, who's deeply confused about what's going on in the country and real angry about the picture that all the little video reels have created in his mind. He's bought himself a handgun now.