Andrew Miller: Taylor Swift and Alexei Navalny encourage dreams of healthy societies

Alexei Navalny, like a modern Russian Mona Lisa, has eyes that follow you around the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please find your seats.”

His head is tilted slightly to the right, arms folded calmly on the table, as he leans in like a patient, insistent teacher. His gaze skewers from the screen as he incants a premortem epitaph via YouTube.

He can’t see us, but he knows the world is watching — that we cannot unsee him now.

“The show is about to begin.”

Navalny demonstrated his profound strength, to the quiet admiration of even his jailers. When I close my eyes — to briefly catch a breath — I see him speaking down the barrel.

“Take action . . . the fact they killed me proves how powerful we are,” he says.

His bravery and self-sacrifice are in the pantheon of Mandela, Gandhi and the Unknown Soldiers. He refused to back down to brutality.

“Fresh from her record-breaking, sold-out concerts around the world . . .”

Global affairs press in, even as we make our way to her arenas. The world is intimately connected.

It has ever been thus, but the unique environment for this generation is uncensored 24/7 video of war, famine and pestilence right there in our feed. It is much harder for the generals and politicians to control the message now.

Navalny was savvy with his ability to produce new media — strategic viral videos — to inspire and inform a following.

“The most successful entertainer of our time. . .”

By the time you read this, I will have been proudly baptised alongside the other Swiftie dads. I will hold my 26-year-old daughter’s hand in Sydney, and will mumble “I’m not crying!”

In 2011, I passively absorbed the lyrics to Taylor’s album Speak Now. Like so many other adolescents, my 13-year-old was channeling her stress into music. I am forever grateful that Taylor was instrumental in providing relief.

The way she writes — with resilience and honest fragility — and navigates her vulnerable life under intense scrutiny, are a north star for many youngsters bathed in social media.

“Prepare to see something you will never forget. . .”

The argument that “life has always been uncertain, and we had it just as tough” is specious when we see the rules-based international order sagging like a sad, cold soufflé. #WorldWarIII is trending. The globally enmeshed problems with cost of living, gig economies, global pandemics, climate change, and artificial intelligence are a frightening recipe.

Taylor is by no means a fully-formed answer to our problems. But then who is?

No one who has studied her effect on culture and politics is underestimating her, or her calls for the American youth to vote. She could stay out of it, but she doesn’t. She might just deny Trump — who looks like a chaotic wannabe autocrat — his coveted second term. That’s no ordinary pop star.

She endorses candidates who support women’s access to the health care they deserve, and she has the sort of follower stats that Machiavellian election campaigners dream of.

Some men seem to have taken Taylor’s success as a direct attack on their grumpy prostates. Perhaps it prickles their parts that she is winning at their home game — capitalism.

Her generation will not be ignored. Taylor is just a figurehead, the catalytic concept, the lightning rod of a zeitgeist that has seen The Handmaid’s Tale, and says “no thanks”. Her fans, having found the safety of each other, are exploring their agency.

They are now more influential than their NFL-loving dads.

She gives hope to ordinary people. A cause for which Navalny made the ultimate sacrifice.

They didn’t come here to save us. They are not the messiahs, but they encourage dreams of healthy societies.

They show us, in very different ways, that if we want to keep our freedoms, we must take action. Go Taylor Swift, and RIP Alexei Navalny.

We cannot unsee them now.