Gen Z is channeling climate anxiety and anger into music.
All summer, 24-year-old Augusta Senenssie had Billie Eilish’s song “Overheated” stuck in her head. In June 2022, Eilish hosted a series of climate talks in London by the same name, alongside her UK tour dates. In July and August, the UK faced a series of heat waves, breaking records for the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the country. Senenssie walked around her sweltering London neighborhood with searing music in her ears. Another of her favorites, “Fire on the Mountain” by Asa, portends doom with lyrics like “One day, the river will overflow / And there’ll be nowhere for us to go /And we will run, run / Wishing we had put out the fire, oh.”
As a youth council member of the climate action organization Earth Uprising, Senenssie is closer to the levers of climate power than most of her peers. Her activism has brought her to United Nations conferences on climate change and youth. But that doesn’t necessarily make her more optimistic. “You have people say loads of congratulatory things, and have you go and speak at all of these important summits, but your work has no binding impact on what’s being decided at the high levels that affects everyone,” she said.
Senenssie is not alone in her anger. That doomer tone you’re sensing in the internet ether — where young people are posting memes about this was not only the hottest summer of our lives but also the coldest summer of the rest of our lives — follows a shift in Gen Z’s perception of a climate-changed future. This sentiment slips into the memes they make, the way they relate to their peers and families, and even the music they listen to. TikToks set to Pinegrove’s “Orange,” a song about California’s devastating 2020 wildfire summer, show young fans crying on camera above comments like “doomed species in its death throes” and “I’m giving up.” Like listening to devastating breakup songs after you’ve been dumped, young people are bingeing music about the end of the world to wallow in their climate despair.
To Gen Z, the future doesn’t look bright, but it does look hot
The first Gen Zers came of age alongside the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report that detailed the disastrous impacts of a projected 1.5°C global temperature rise. That summer was filled with headlines about humanity having only 12 years left before certain catastrophe, and Gen Z became convinced that their futures were over before they even started.
“This generation feels like they’re facing an unprecedented threat … like, we’re not gonna get through this. This is forever,” said environmental studies professor Sarah Jaquette Ray. In her book A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, Ray describes asking her class to visualize a positive future where climate change had been successfully mitigated. She found that these students were unable to envision a future of any kind — their anxiety cut off their ability to see themselves living into adulthood.
“I used to listen to a lot of pop-punk music that was all about how it might get better when you grow up. Now it’s like I’m older, and it’s absolutely terrifying and I’m not having a great time,” says Kelsie Herzog, a 25-year-old TikTok creator who makes playlists and gives music recommendations to her 130,000 followers. Her tastes have changed to favor music that captures her anger and fear. One song she has on heavy rotation is “Colony Collapse” by Snag, with lyrics like “The more that I learn, the more I believe the earth is a corpse laid at our feet.”
A 2021 survey in The Lancet showed that 56 percent of people ages 16 to 25 believe “humanity is doomed,” and 75 percent describe the future as “frightening,” highlighting a generational divide in outlook on climate change. Senenssie describes a “patriarchal arrogance” that she encounters as being the fuel to her climate grief. She feels like adults whose daily lives aren’t yet affected by climate change are quick to minimize her fears.
Older generations tend to compare climate change to other threats like economic recessions and wars, Ray confirms. “There’s that kind of battle over whose existential threats were worse.” Older generations who have overcome their own challenges believe Gen Z’s anxieties will be healed with time. But seeing no evidence that an end to climate change is in sight, young people feel dismissed, and seek validation for their fears elsewhere.
Listening to music feels like being heard
That’s why, post-IPCC special report, releases that describe the world ending in floods, droughts, and fires, like Hozier’s Wasteland, Baby!, Childish Gambino’s “Feels Like Summer,” and Soccer Mommy’s “newdemo” are making such an impact with the under-25 set — these millennial songwriters can relate to their generational frustrations and fears.
Tamara Lindeman, 37, of the folk band the Weather Station, describes her lyrics as an attempt to process her own emotions around climate change. “There’s this term ‘soft denial.’ You know, but you act like you don’t know. I was in that place for a few years, just avoiding the topic in my mind, avoiding the topic in the news, and then it just hit me all over again,” Lindeman said. She went on to write lyrics like “I’m pretty tired of this bait-and-switch / I don’t wanna have to smile when I open my gift, and there’s nothing inside it,” which speak to Gen Z’s frustration with older generations who minimize their concerns about the future.
“With other things that you might be afraid of, you might be able to do research and you might be able to lessen your fear.” she said. “With climate, when you do research it, it expands [your fear]. I think what’s important about this issue is fear and grief is an appropriate and accurate response.” Her music reflects that climate anxiety isn’t an emotion to solve or get over. Like her fans, Lindeman experiences it thrumming in the background of her everyday life.
But apocalypse music isn’t some cesspool of anguish from which listeners can never escape. Once fans find validation for their feelings, they look around and find a bunch of other people feeling the same way. “I have this huge community of people that like the same music as me. We can all relate to the lyrics, be sad and angsty and all that stuff. Weird as it sounds, it feels kind of comforting,” says Herzog. Think about the role that music fandom plays in identity formation and community-building in adolescence — the people who listen to your favorite band are the only ones who really get you. Then imagine that, unlike your parents or classmates, the person next to you at the concert takes your deepest fears seriously.
“Say somebody was experiencing anxiety, got involved in the community, found their people, and then got involved in some climate actions,” said Ray. “It wasn’t the actions that they did that alleviated the anxiety. … The antidote to our feelings is the same antidote to the climate crisis, which is community.” The oft-memed idea that individual actions don’t matter in the face of corporate inaction can leave young people feeling powerless, no matter how many car rides or fast-fashion hauls they forgo. But building the kinds of relationships they’ll need for climate resiliency seems much more within reach.
Once young people have an outlet for their grief, it can start to transform. Bartees Strange funneled his own anxiety into his work at a climate advocacy nonprofit for more than five years. Then, disillusioned and burned out, the 33-year-old songwriter quit his job in 2020 to release his debut album Live Forever. He described his frustration with white colleagues for whom climate change was their first personal experience of injustice. “My life has always been impacted by a third party since forever, so I’m watching people in the climate movement go through emotions that I went through as an 8-year-old,” he said. “But when you live through it and you’re able to celebrate, and you process it in a way where you can uplift other people, then grief can become fuel for beautiful things.”
Strange’s music, like Lindeman’s, starts with grief, but songs like “Mulholland Drive” take listeners on a cycle of death and rebirth with lyrics like “I don’t believe in the bullshit of wondering when we die / I’ve seen the ending, it’s all in your face and your eyes / I’ve seen how we die, I know how to lose.”
For young fans feeling like they’re watching the end of the world, Strange offers up the possibility that letting go of one idea of the future makes room for a new one to begin. He hints at what Ray calls the “radical imagination” needed to see a future that lies just beyond certain doom. That imagination is crucial for finding climate solutions, but the trick is that it can’t be accessed by trying to bypass climate emotions with dismissal or detachment.
For Senenssie, that future looks like resisting the pull to pessimism that only wealthy countries can afford. While those least responsible for the climate crisis are already feeling its worst effects, she reminds me, young people in the Global South do not have the luxury of giving in. And listening to music from artists around the world is one way of maintaining her connection to the global climate movement. “The emotions can be sort of overwhelming,” says Senenssie. “But I think of the beauty of the fact that in this movement and in this space together, we feel so deeply, and we’re so interconnected.”
Networking gets a bad rap, but it doesn’t have to be overly scary, shallow, or corporate.
At the end of my sophomore year of college, I found myself at a career crossroads. The pandemic hit a few months earlier and like most students across the country, I was kicked off campus and sent back home. As I spent the remainder of the school year sitting idly in my childhood bedroom, I had no choice but to wrestle with the ever-looming question: What do I really want to do with my life?
Media and culture had always been passions of mine, but I never saw them as viable paths to pursue. But the dreariness of the pandemic shook me, and I decided to pivot from business to journalism with no portfolio, no connections, and no experience during what seemed like the most inopportune time to make a career switch. The only resource I had at my disposal was the internet — and turns out I didn’t need much more. Over the next few weeks, I scoured the depths of Twitter — reading profiles of journalists my age and seasoned writers with dream gigs. I figured the best way to learn more about the industry was to actually talk to people who were in it. I cold Twitter-DM’d anyone I thought was remotely interesting and asked to hop on the phone with them. To my surprise not one person refused — and through these conversations I learned about programs to apply to, editors to pitch to, and other writers I should try to talk to.
At the time, I didn’t consider what I was doing to be “networking.” I always associated the term with putting on a fake persona, connecting with professionals on LinkedIn, or talking to recruiters at companies I applied to work at. In fact, that’s one of the biggest misconceptions about networking — and is what turns so many people away from one of the most crucial skills to building a successful career. According to HubSpot, 85 percent of jobs are filled through networking. Seventy percent of jobs are never even published publicly, meaning that so many opportunities arise simply from talking to people — whether it’s a formal coffee chat or over Twitter DM. It’s a daunting reality, particularly for those who don’t come from privileged backgrounds or aren’t born with connections that can help them out. Luckily, there are plenty of tactics and tools anyone can use to strengthen or build new relationships — especially in the digital age.
Want to learn how to network but don’t know where to start? Here’s a simple guide that shows you the term isn’t as cringey or scary as it’s all made out to be. It’s actually quite intuitive, and like most things, becomes easier the more you do it. So give it a shot, because talking to the right person could go a long way.
Network with friends first
There’s no easier place to start networking than with people you already know. You might be thinking, “I already know what everyone in my circle does. How can they help me?” As much as we like to think otherwise, the world doesn’t revolve around us. People, even those closest to us, aren’t constantly thinking about us and our needs. They can’t read our minds either.
A close mentor, professor, or even friend could know that you’re vaguely interested in something but have no idea that you’re actively looking for a job or to learn more if you don’t tell them. All along, they could have had the resources to help you or introduce you to someone who might know more than them. I would talk to someone about journalism and they would say, “Do you know so-and-so? They do something similar, and I’m sure would love to talk to you about it!” It never hurts to ask for an introduction, or you can reach out to them directly.
Re-activate loose connections (email is your friend)
Almost 50 years ago, Dr. Mark Granovetter, a sociologist at Stanford University, published an influential paper titled “The Strength of Weak Ties.” In it, Granovetter showed that those we consider to be part of our outer circle of acquaintances (“weak ties”) are more likely to be sources of new information and ideas than those in our inner circles (“strong ties”).
In his research, Granovetter surveyed 282 Boston-based workers and found that 84% got their jobs through weak-tie relationships. The argument is simple: Those in your inner circles usually have the same information and overlapping networks that you do. It is more likely that an acquaintance will have a different perspective and can act as a bridge to other networks you cannot see.
“Novelty means getting outside of your own little social bubble, or, as we have learned to say, ‘echo chamber,’ and talking to people you don’t know that well who are doing things you never imagined,” Granovetter told me in an email. “If you only know people you work with every day, you won’t be learning anything new about how to do things.”
Reaching out to that friend-of-a-friend who works in a field you’re interested in could open you up to even more circles. You don’t need to have a specific reason for reconnecting other than being interested in the other person and what they do. People are usually always open to talking about themselves, particularly when it’s with someone who is trying to learn from them. An email could be as simple as:
Hi [their name],
Hope you are doing well! My name is [your name] and I’m [brief sentence of your experiences or what you’ve been working on]. I’m really interested in [field/industry/job] and I remember hearing from [friend’s name] that you work in [field/industry/job]. If you have the time, I would love to learn more about it and your experiences! Thanks, and looking forward to hearing back from you.
Best,
[your name]
“Homo sapiens evolved from the apes, and the apes are highly social,” Granovetter said. “There are many studies about their networks, so in terms of evolution, we are already predisposed to be social.”
However, access to social capital is not available to everyone in the same way. “Research, (and not just my research) is consistent with the finding that social capital tends to be more limited for African Americans and other minority groups than their white counterparts,” Danielle Taana Smith, a professor of African American Studies at Syracuse University and Director of the Renée Crown University Honors Program, says. “I would encourage individuals in minority groups to seek out people who can be allies, to seek out mentors, and to form close relationships with them.” Professional organizations, and peer mentoring programs that exist at universities and corporations, are a good place to start, Smith says.
Google and social media are also your friends
With the ability to find and reach people with a quick Google search, networking has never been easier — and has become even more accessible since the pandemic put constraints on in-person events.
Social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook can be used for much more than just sharing experiences with friends. Depending on what industry you’re in or looking to be in, these platforms can act as a way to casually reach out to people. Making an initial introduction via DM could lead to a more formal email or phone call, particularly if you have mutual friends or followers. It can be as simple as saying something like, “Hi, [their name], hope you are doing well! I’m [your name] and I saw that you work in [specific job/role], which is something I’m really interested in! [sentence talking about your own experiences] If you have any time, I would love to learn more about what you do. If so, let me know a good way to reach you!”
Meanwhile, professional networking sites like LinkedIn are not only useful for connecting with those in industries like business or tech (amongst others) but also for building a digital presence. Cultivating and updating a profile that reflects your interests, skills, and experiences encourages people and companies to reach out to you — opening yourself up to opportunities you may not even know about.
“In a way, access to the internet has further democratized the world, because it has provided opportunities to all,” Smith says. “For minority groups, or those that have traditionally lacked access to social capital, the internet is one way of gaining access to information. It’s a way of forming organizations that may not be in your geographic area. In a very real sense, it widens your access to social resources.”
Keep in touch, and always send a thank you note
Perhaps the most important but overlooked step of networking is keeping in contact with people you’ve connected with. After a phone call or coffee chat, always remember to send a thank you note to the person who took time out of their day to talk to you. It’s always best to mention specific anecdotes from your conversation, as well as reiterate your experiences and what you’re interested in. Feel free to keep it brief:
Hi [their name],
Hope you are doing well! Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me about [topic]. I learned a lot from our conversation and especially really enjoyed hearing about [their experience/what they talked about]. [Sentence about an action you plan on taking going forward/what you took from the conversation.] Best of luck and keep in touch!
Best,
[your name]
Ghosting someone after they’ve offered their time and only reaching out if you need something from them is an ineffective way to form real connections and will likely make the interaction feel transactional. Like you would with any other relationship, it’s important to check in from time to time — asking the other person what they’ve been up to, as well as updating them on new experiences you may have had.
After all, at the core of networking is learning how to create and strengthen meaningful, long-lasting relationships. It’s not as scary or alien as you might think.
Teresa Xie is a freelance writer for publications such as Pitchfork, Teen Vogue, NPR, and The Nation.
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In nine states, voters might elect a Republican governor and Democratic senator (or vice versa).
The most competitive statewide races have tightened in the closing weeks of the 2022 midterm elections, and though fears of a “red wave” are growing among Democrats, big GOP wins might not mean that Democrats lose all the statewide races they’re running in. Depending on the strength of that wave, Americans might see the return of what was — until recently — a dying American tradition: split-ticket voting, or electing candidates from different political parties for different statewide, congressional, or presidential races.
In nine states, that would look like voters having a senator and a governor (or another office, like secretary of state or US representative) from different political parties. For most of American political history, voting like this wasn’t out of the ordinary.
“It reached its height in the mid to late ’80s, especially at the federal level, [with] people voting [differently] for president and Congress,” Barry C. Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin Madison, told Vox. But as political polarization, the decline of local news, and the nationalization of local politics have increased in the past two decades, split-ticket voting has been dying a slow death.
“Very few states [have] senators of different parties, and they’re even elected in different years,” Burden, who co-wrote a book on this history, said. “Even the number of split Senate delegations, where senators are from different parties, is now at a relative low.”
In fact, if the nine states where split statewide tickets are possible this year do vote that way, it would mark a significant departure from current trends: Two states split their tickets in 2016, voting differently in the presidential, Senate, and governor’s races; five states elected governors and senators from different parties in 2018; and only one state (Maine), voted for Biden but elected a Republican to the Senate — a “modern low,” according to Burden.
Below, we’ve broken down the states where voters have the potential to send dueling messages about the party they support, and some reasons why.
States where incumbency and tradition are at play
There are two states that constantly befuddle laypeople and political nerds alike: New Hampshire and Vermont, which both have a history of wonky politics that allow for a situation where a massively popular Republican governor wins reelection in the bluest state. This year, Vermont might end up being the surest state to split its ticket, giving Republican Phil Scott another two-year term while electing Democratic Rep. Peter Welch as the state’s newest senator. Given that Vermont only has one House seat, Welch’s eight terms as Congress member give him a huge leg up in the blue state (he’s also facing a conservative Republican), while Scott has won reelection twice before, running as a liberal Republican.
New Hampshire, meanwhile, has a similar libertarian tilt. A perennial swing state, it’s been more likely to split its ticket in recent elections, reelecting Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. A popular incumbent due in part to his family’s legacy in the state (a former governor as a father and former senator as a brother) and moderate politics, Sununu is again expected to be reelected, while incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan faces a competitive race that leans Democratic, as she faces an inexperienced, Trumpy opponent, Don Bolduc.
States where candidate quality is affecting tight contests
Four swing states feature the most competitive races this year, where even the slightest scandal could make all the difference between a split ticket or a sweep. In those states, voters’ dislike for a candidate might be strong enough to cause them to break with the political party they would usually choose.
In Georgia, most polling shows incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp with a solid lead over Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams and consistently performing better than the Republican Senate candidate, Herschel Walker. Walker is in a tight race to oust Sen. Raphael Warnock, who has been leading in most polls, according to averages from RealClearPolitics.
Here, candidate quality and incumbency seem to be playing a role: Kemp has maintained relatively high approval ratings in the state (because of both a strong Covid-era economy —he quickly reopened businesses — and his conservative credentials), and has already beaten Abrams once before. Walker is a flawed candidate with low favorability ratings among all voters, including independents; his most recent abortion scandals haven’t helped with that perception. People already didn’t trust Walker to be honest before revelations that he paid for a woman to have an abortion; a bigger share now says they don’t trust him or don’t believe he has good leadership skills. Given Kemp’s track record and Walker’s scandals, voters could default to picking the incumbents they already know.
The opposite dynamic might be playing out in Pennsylvania, where most polling shows Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro outperforming the Democratic Senate candidate, John Fetterman. Both have previously won statewide office, are seen more favorably than their Republican opponents, and have polling leads — but while Shapiro’s lead has expanded over the last few weeks, Fetterman’s lead over Republican candidate Mehmet Oz has narrowed. Part of that might be due to previously undecided Republicans “coming home” to support their party’s candidate, but candidate quality plays a role here, too.
Oz, flawed and easy to meme, still comes across as a more palatable, traditional Republican candidate than gubernatorial counterpart Doug Mastriano: an election-denying, Christian nationalist who has solidified support among the far right but may be turning off more moderate Republican, suburban, and independent voters in the state due to his strong opposition to abortion, presence at Trump’s January 6 rally, and connection to extremist figures. Though Oz may be appealing to those voters, they might be more comfortable with a known figure for governor: Shapiro was popular as attorney general, and he has been running a low-key, mostly positive campaign. If that breakdown sounds unusual, take it directly from one of those voters: the now-viral 25-year-old from Pittsburgh who is hoping for a Democratic governor and a Republican senator.
Arizona has a similar dynamic: Incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly has been overperforming in the newest swing state due in part to the poor perception voters have of his opponent, the far-right Republican candidate Blake Masters. Masters, an anti-abortion, election denier with a history of questionable statements, has not led in any recent polling, while Kelly, who won a special election in 2020 by a better margin than Biden won the state, benefits from name recognition, independent personal popularity, and fundraising prowess. He’s been outraising and outspending Masters, who has struggled to get national Republican support this year.
The gubernatorial contest, however, is much closer. The right-wing, Trump-loyalist former TV news anchor Kari Lake has been leading her Democratic opponent, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, in most recent polling, and seems to be running one of the most unconventional campaigns in Arizona history: calling out the state’s Republican establishment, declining to hire a traditional campaign staff, and going with her gut instead of hiring pollsters.
Candidate quality matters again: Lake is just as extreme as Masters, if not more so, but is much more of an exciting figure to her base than Hobbs is to hers or Masters to his. She’s a gifted public speaker (decades of TV experience will do that for you) and commands the direction of every conversation she engages — “Trump with media training and polish,” the Washington Post’s Ruby Cramer calls her. She seems to be holding together much of the state’s Republican coalition through a combination of 2020 election fraud claims, harping on inflation and Arizona’s affordability crisis, and old-fashioned personality politics (like calling Hobbs a “coward opponent” for not debating her). As a result, she’s lifting up a pack of 2020 election-denying statewide candidates down-ballot.
In those races, for Arizona secretary of state and attorney general, election deniers Mark Finchem and Abe Hamadeh are running slightly ahead of their Democratic opponents. Republicans have also held the governor’s office since 2009, and up until 2018, Arizona was a reliably Republican state — so enough voters who find Kelly to be an appealing candidate may still default to voting Republican down-ballot.
Finally, Nevada seems to be the state where Democrats are most likely to be swept away by a red wave, where the fundamentals of a midterm election as a referendum on the party in power might be too toxic for any Democrat to survive. Still, incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is running a strong campaign and performing slightly better than incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak. Among the issues that Cortez Masto has brought to the center of her campaign, like inflation and abortion rights, is the “Big Lie” that Trump won the 2020 election. That’s because of the central role that her opponent, former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, played in trying to delegitimize Nevada’s election results, serving as the Trump campaign’s Nevada co-chair and spokesperson while holding press conferences to boost false voter fraud claims and spreading claims of fraud on TV, internet, and radio.
Laxalt has tried to stay out of the mainstream spotlight (almost exclusively doing interviews with right-leaning outlets) but still carries a lot of baggage. Though he was elected attorney general after Cortez Masto served two terms, he lost in the 2018 governor’s race to Sisolak by a whopping (by Nevada standards) 4 percentage points, or 40,000 votes. This time, Sisolak faces a more conventional Republican candidate: Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo. Despite some missteps and a tightly contested Republican primary, Lombardo has managed to unite Republicans, with help from Trump. That might result in a Laxalt loss but a Lombardo win.
States where politicians are the face of issues that have voters upset
Elections in three other states might also hinge primarily on the issues that are unfolding in the state.
In Oregon, frustration with housing affordability, crime, and homelessness helped drive down the term-limited current Gov. Kate Brown’s approval rating to the lowest in the country. Her party’s candidate to succeed her, Tina Kotek, is similarly weighed down by frustration with the status quo and her ties to the Democratic establishment in the state. But these issues have also led to a gush of Democratic support to a moderate independent candidate, Betsy Johnson, a former Democrat who is pulling support away from Kotek among disgruntled Oregonians. That could lead to the election of Republican Christine Drazan, who would be the first Republican governor in Oregon since the 1980s. No similar dynamic is playing out in the state’s Senate race, where incumbent Ron Wyden is a shoo-in for reelection.
In Wisconsin, meanwhile, abortion, crime, and policing are playing a central role in both marquee statewide races. In his reelection effort, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is highlighting his defense of abortion rights and kitchen-table issues, like expanding broadband internet, against a Trump-backed challenger, Tim Michels. The race is much more competitive than the state’s Senate contest, where incumbent Ron Johnson, long seen as one of the most vulnerable Republicans on the ballot this year, looks more likely to win reelection. He’s been centering crime and his opponent’s progressivism as liabilities: In TV ads that have blanketed the state, Johnson portrays Mandela Barnes, the state’s lieutenant governor, as a “radical leftist” for his history of backing more progressive policing. The negative ads have contributed toward an expanding lead, and though still seen as a toss-up race, almost every poll since September has shown Johnson beating Barnes. Those attacks, coupled with the advantage of incumbency, could mean Evers ends up narrowly winning, while Barnes loses.
Kansas presents another opportunity for ticket-splitting: Republican Sen. Jerry Moran is cruising to victory in his bid for his third term, but the state’s Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, is fighting to make politics local and win reelection by focusing on cutting taxes, increasing spending on education, building affordable housing, and expanding access to high-speed internet. Unlike in any other state, her opponent, Attorney General Derek Schmidt, is trying to make her talk about abortion as she resists, and she tries to focus voters’ minds on her plans for education and the state’s economy. Though the state voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion rights this summer, the issue was seen through a local lens — the same way Kelly wants to be judged instead of being tied to national politics. That strategy may work — and show the limits of nationalizing politics.