See It Now: When youth becomes the mask for tyranny's old face
In Moscow and Washington, young spokeswomen become the fresh-faced front for authoritarian decay. This post unpacks how political theater is replacing public truth, and why democracy cannot survive the performance.
Good evening.
Tonight we examine a remarkable parallel between two regimes that claim to be different but employ strikingly similar methods. In Moscow and Washington, we find young women—Margarita Simonyan and Karoline Leavitt—serving as the fresh faces of aging power structures, deployed to transform state communication into political theater while attacking the very concept of objective truth.
Consider their trajectories: Simonyan, appointed at 25 to head RT, Russia's international propaganda arm. Leavitt, at 27, elevated to White House Press Secretary. Both chosen not for their depth of experience or commitment to public service, but for their unwavering loyalty to strongmen who prize allegiance over accuracy.
These are not traditional press officers. They are performers in a carefully choreographed assault on democratic discourse. Simonyan transforms RT into an instrument of imperial ambition, while Leavitt converts White House briefings into MAGA campaign rallies. Both weaponize youth and energy to disguise the decay of the institutions they represent.
The parallels run deeper than age or gender. Both operate in systems where truth is subordinate to power. Both attack journalists who question official narratives. Both frame their patrons as victims of vast conspiracies. And both represent a calculated choice: to deploy young, telegenic figures to normalize authoritarian tactics that would seem more obviously alarming from older, grimmer spokespeople.
What makes this particularly insidious is how both women, raised in the media environments their patrons helped create, lack the historical context to understand what they're dismantling. Simonyan filters everything through Putin's nationalist lens; Leavitt through Trump's grievance politics. Neither appears to comprehend that they're not merely serving leaders—they're eroding the foundations of informed citizenship.
The danger lies not in their youth or gender, but in what they represent: the transformation of state communication from a public service into a weapon against public understanding. When press briefings become propaganda sessions, when state media becomes a tool of personality cults, democracy itself begins to suffocate.
History teaches us that authoritarian movements often use fresh faces to sell old tyrannies. These young women, intelligent and capable, have chosen to weaponize their talents in service of decay rather than renewal. They represent not the future, but the desperate attempt of aging power structures to appear modern while pursuing ancient forms of control.
The question before us is not whether these individuals are effective—they demonstrably are. The question is whether we recognize the pattern: how authoritarians worldwide are learning from each other, adopting similar tactics, and deploying similar archetypes to undermine democratic norms.
See it now: In Moscow and Washington, the same playbook unfolds. Different languages, same assault on truth. Different flags, same contempt for accountability. And at the podium, young faces selling old lies.
The price of this performance is paid not by those who stage it, but by citizens who depend on accurate information to make democratic choices. When government communication becomes theater, democracy becomes illusion.
Good night, and good luck.
Channeling Murrow's voice for today's America - not his words, but his principles.
