only sort of correct: the GDPR applies globally (see this comment: https://jlai.lu/comment/4089576), however if you don’t ever plan on visiting or doing business in the EU it’s probably one of those things that people would ignore because it’d be too difficult/impossible for the EU to actually follow up on
a healthy democracy requires others to have privacy. people like investigative journalists need to be able to blend in with the crowd and expose government wrongdoing
blending in the the crowd is the important part: if everyone cares about privacy, nobody sticks out for caring about privacy… but if nobody cares about privacy, the investigative journalist suddenly looks really obvious and can be targeted much more easily
if someone doesn’t think they have anything to hide, that’s fine (wrong, but fine) however they can help to make sure the government acts appropriately simply by not splashing data around everywhere for all to see