Whatever you’re doing and wherever you lay your eyes upon, you cannot escape: America’s midterm elections were held on Tuesday the 6th of November and the news outlet of every country imaginable is discussing it. Whether I read a German newspaper or a Dutch one, watch a British broadcast or an Austrian one — the midterms are all over the place. Now we keep on hearing about states that are still counting and the debate about possible voter fraud. And one might wonder: do I really have to care about this godforsaken political shit-show that is not even happening in my own country? And if I do have to care: why, actually?

The first question has an easy answer: you don’t have to do anything, this is a free country, but especially because you live in a free country, you probably should care about politics. And you probably have to worry about something. Brazil put a sexist, racist homophobe into office. Angela Merkel stepped down from her party leadership, while the political extremes in Germany gain more votes. Saudi Arabia just semi-publicly killed a journalist in an embassy in Turkey. We apparently all have micro plastic in our poop. And that was just October.

So why worry or even care about America’s midterms? Why waste your anxiety on international politics, when your own country’s financial state is probably horrible and refugees live in inhuman situations there and people get murdered and raped and abused in your own city? There are so many things to be anxious about, why care for Republicans and Democrats and god-knows-who in a country on the other side of the Atlantic?

I’m here to say we should care, especially because something is going on anywhere — and we cannot be numbed by the amount of bullshit that is happening in the world. It is okay to not care about everything, god knows your head would explode. But we also have to educate ourselves on current political issues, even if they happen in other countries. We have to keep up to date with things happening in Saudi Arabia and China and Germany and Brazil and, yes, even the US midterm elections. Because this world is intertwined and complicated and if we don’t pay attention and do not care, things can and will get ugly. Political madness does not stop at the border. Believe me, I sat through a lot of German history lessons.

Every two weeks, Antonia will add the songs she writes about to the Spotify playlist below. This way, she creates a soundtrack to her time in Nijmegen. Click left and right for more songs.

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