How much do current affairs affect you?

I have friends who may lose their jobs over the current national politics. it deepy affects me.. possible increased pollution and destruction of environment, cut in social safety net my disabled child needs.. very worried about it all

I watch the daily news for the headlines - however, current affairs don't really affect me much.  I try not to get to involved with watching too much news - it gets depressing.

The health care initiatives terrify me. I can't believe anyone would think it's acceptable to do away with the protection for people with pre-existing conditions.

So, I pay attention to that news.

I definitely keep up with the news. Some news stories upset me more than others. The pictures from Syria on the news yesterday were gut wrenching.

Generally, though politics don't affect my mood much on a day to day basis.

Same. I don't watch TV news, but read online articles and listed to NPR.
The issues being addressed by the current administration will affect us all (mostly negatively unless you are incredibly wealthy - just my opinion).

However, don't forget local issues, which can have a more immediate day-to-day effect. We just had elections for mayor, alderman, school board, park district board, community college board and a vote on a school referendum. Those choices will affect us pretty quickly, hopefully for the better.
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Well, there are pockets of things that concern me and one or two that have a direct impact on my family. Example: My daughter is a navigator on a US Naval destroyer currently based in Japan. North Korea rumblings are a cause for concern, although I try to keep it in perspective. I either go all in on NK/Asia news or I skitter away until I feel like dealing with it.

But overall, I just try to hit the highlights so I can stay informed. Although I am a Republican, I am not a fan of Donald Trump and I prefer not to give him any more attention than I have to, so I try not to delve too deep because I don't want to go there.

My Facebook feed has really mellowed out I have slowed down my visits here because I'm tired of the 5 - 10 daily political threads  So I've been hanging out there more often. And in my specific groups (dog, cooking, crafts)

On my FB feed I do have one or two people from each party (democrat, republican, libertarian) that do post some political stuff. But it's not like it was right after the election and it's not as inflammatory as it used to be It's been such a nice change and made me not want to avoid it all because of the ugliness. 

We do have a lot of local political talk on my feed. Many people that are posting on our local news articles are pretty angry about our huge and multiple tax hikes and the wasteful spending. We have a road project that is 3 years behind schedule and half a billion over budget 

This. This is the scariest for our family.

Sometimes it gets me down and I think how lucky I am to live where I do and my problems really aren't that bad at all. Try to be thankful for each day.

  So totally agree. I'm a BBC news junkie, yes, they tend liberal, but they have excellant reporting. I also read the German publication Spiegel, and the Japanese publication Asahi Shimbun.

 I also subscribe to the Washington Post, New York Times, and the L.A Times. I do not believe they are "fake news" , whatever the hell that means.

 There's plenty of really good reporting out there, from trusted sources. These "fringe" blogs, and I put Brietbart in that category, or nothing more than conduits of Russian bots.

I watch the national news each evening and check headlines a few times a day. I usually read one article on something at breakfast. I can't say that I think about many of the stories in between times. Sometimes DH or I will bring up something and discuss it on our walk. Unfortunately we can no longer discuss politics peacefully - mainly I can't maintain my temper for long - so that leaves out a lot of things because he turns everything political. Even though we disagreed in the last two administrations, we could discuss things reasonably and we enjoyed talking about the election.

When I do speech therapy with my dad, I sometimes use words from the Charlotte paper but otherwise I almost never look at local news. Charlotte isn't that local to me anyway. I don't read newspapers from towns around us. My Mother and friends usually tell me anything they think everyone should know like the recent presence of a sinkhole in the middle of a nearby town.

Rarely do I become obsessed with sensational national or international news. I still to this day don't know or care who Casey Anthony is. There was one story that I did obsess over and that was the Malaysian airliner that went down presumably in the Indian Ocean. How could 200 people fall out of the sky and no one know where they went? I read everything on it ever day until finally I read a theory that made perfect sense and I accepted that as probably what happened (fire on board). I think I read it from a link on the old 2P's board.

I was heavily involved before this election and I will continue to be as heavily involved as I am able to. The current administration is a frightening cluster fuck and the policy proposals will have a direct negative impact on my family's daily life, possibly for decades to come. So I cannot in good conscience sit by and watch.

Short answer is yes, I rage against the machine on the daily and I'm not stopping until I'm dead.

Mostly, I am overwhelmingly sad. I thought that even though I knew most politicians were self-serving, I felt that in the end they would do what was best for the country. I was wrong. There is nobody that can stop this Administration running amuck.