When AI was analog: How Karoline Leavitt channels Max Headroom energy

Karoline Leavitt is what happens when a political press secretary is rendered as a buffering 1980s AI host—part Max Headroom, part Pez dispenser of nonsense.

She is batshit crazy

Recently, she told Fox News that Democrats are just jealous of Trump’s 150 percent approval rating.

Wait. What?

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How does that even work?

What about everyone else—the libertarians, the minor parties, the people who’ve opted out entirely?

For those under 55 years-of-age, Max Headroom was a glitchy, sarcastic, computer-generated TV personality with more attitude than coherence. Like DC and Marvel superheroes and villains, he rose from the ashes of near-life-ending trauma.

In the movie of his origin story, Edison Carter (portrayed by Matt Frewer, the actor who really invented Max Headroom) is a journalist fleeing enemies on his motorcycle. He turned left into a parking garage, crashing violently through a barrier reading, “Max. headroom 2.3 metres.” While unconscious, an artificial intelligence program based on his mind was created.

Fast forward, and we have Leavitt serving as the White House press secretary since.

God (or something), help us all.

How did we get here?

Leavitt studied politics and communication at Saint Anselm College. She, too, must have experienced trauma—escaping on a motorcycle, she turned right into a Washington, DC parking garage and crashed violently through signage that read, “Caution, poor visibility.”

One turned left and became satire. The other turned right and became an arrogant mouthpiece of drivel and bunk.

An AI program replaced her brain with the code for a young, privileged tyrant. She quickly re-emerged as a pro-Trump candidate and is now the youngest press secretary in U.S. history

Maxine Headroom on the left, Karoline Leavitt before all the plastic surgery (check out the nose and lips)

Meanwhile, Leavitt, as it turns out, is just Nellie Oleson—a satirical exaggeration of the worst tendencies of American politics in the 2020s. A character built to appeal to those who hear slogans as policy and weave hyperbole as poetry.

And, somewhere in the back of that corrupted code, a little glitch laughs.

We are left with Leavitt telling us that Donald J. Trump is the greatest president in history.

The first AI ingredient was satire, right?

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