Conservative wunderkind Jonathan Krohn growing more insufferable by the second
Remember Jonathan Krohn, the 13 year-old author of "Defining Conservatism" who spoke at the CPAC convention a couple of weeks ago? Well, he's not going away anytime soon, and yesterday he took to the airways with an incredulous Bob Schieffer to tell the world that he's "a political analyst and not just a kid" and that he...wait for it...wants to host his own talk show! Fox News should be ringing his phone any day now.
Seriously, how fucked up is this kid gonna be when he grows up? Can we start placing bets now? What's the line on him getting busted wearing a diaper with a male hooker in an airport bathroom stall, cuz I'd like to place a cool hundy on that scenario right now.
Okay, all jokes aside, this shit is just fucking sad. I think Gawker's Alex Pareene put all of this into perspective rather well...
There can be arguments about how much agency children should be allowed, but societally it's unacceptable to say anyone pre-pubescent has the rational capability or emotional maturity to make decisions for themselves about participation in sex, war, labor, mind-altering substances, the electoral process, or even schooling. Which is why a kid who has sex or goes to war or works in a factory is acknowledged to have been forced to do this, even if, when you ask the kid, they may say it was their idea, or that they enjoy it. Childhood is a social construct, but it's one of the cornerstones of our western society.
Now Jonathan Krohn is 14, but he was 13 when he spoke at CPAC, and he's been at this shit—self-publishing books and writing political radio programs and generally hustling and speaking in freakishly complete sentences holding forth on the tenets of conservativism—for some time.
We were a precocious, precious, well-spoken and bright young liberal atheist ourself at that age, but our parents didn't put us in a monkey suit and send us to TV studios. We just wrote funny plays and stories, at school, and desperately tried to find a social group and get girls to like us, at school. No one groomed us for radio appearances or televised speeches, they just encouraged us to continue our education until we could come to an adult decision, aided by maturity and schooling, about what the hell we wanted to do with our political beliefs and readings and sense of humor (haha sorry that didn't work out too well, mom).
Why is demonstrating how well you trained a child to parrot bullshit a coherent or convincing argument for your political philosophy? What planet are you on?
If Jonathan Krohn were a child actor, I'd say that this had all the makings of a future E! True Hollywood Story.
12 comments:
Maybe Victoria Jackson was his nanny...
I cringe out of embarassment for him. In a few years, he is going to be as uncomfortable watching stuff like this as I am looking at band pictures of me in middle school.
But unlike you, I think he'll grow up and turn out to be a huge liberal. This is just predictable irony; the media wants stories like that really bad.
I am the mother of a precocious 15-year-old and this kid, Jonathon Krohn, completely creeps me out. I want to see his parents and get some idea of how he became this obnoxious. Home-schooling...brainwashing...ventriloquism?
His parents are practicing a sophisticated form of child abuse. And because he's their kid and not mine, they have the right to practice it until he becomes 18 or cracks up and runs screaming away from the Cons.
dont you people get it?
the kid was going nowhere in his acting career
he wouldnt have gotten any attention had he spewed liberal stuff...so...he self publishes a book, learns a few talking points, gets some talking heads interested in him, and walla...a star is born
btw, heard him on the hartmann progam...once you get past the talking points, the kid sounds and acts exactly like a kid
I don't think he cares if girls like him.
Am I the only one that thinks this kid is like a non-funny Lil O'Reilly?
There is part of me that keeps waiting for the FunnyOrDie folk to come out of the woodwork and go "Gotcha!"
Can anyone say the male political version of Jon Benet Ramsey?
This kid is losing so much of his youth it isn't funny. Perhaps he truly thinks he is enjoying himself, but I bet he isn't. He is like a trained monkey, trying to please his parents and make big bucks for them. Like all many children (of all species), he will revolt one day and turn on his trainers with a vengeance. I hope they are prepared...
GinIndiana
This works on so many levels. But one question that occurs to me is the same one CB posed about Limbaugh. How can this happen? The "Right" is represented by a 14 y.o., Limbaugh, Victoria Jackson (who's handstands I always appreciated in the old SNL days) and the ever contrite Michael Steele. How in the hell do they expect anyone to take them seriously?
RJ
I knew a kid like him in gradeschool (different in that it was science not politics), what he really wanted so desparately was to be liked, since his behaviour was so extreme he alienated his peers so he had to major suck up to adults for any attention. I feel sorry for him, he will be missing the most gratifying part of his life and search for something he can never get back in the future. G in Indy, I had the same thought that he was a male version of those doll models that have no idea what they are selling for some adult living vicariously through them.
Hilarious take by the Gawker and i have to wholeheartedly agree except from reading a couple of articles about him (on in the NY Times) his parents actually aren't very political and are as surprised by his "hobby" as others are.
It just seems that most people object to his political POV (as I do) rather than the fact that this is a vulnerable inexperienced kid who doesn't have the maturity level to deal with all the negative ramifications all this attention will bring (the only part I object to).
So even though the parents seem a bit embarrassed by the whole thing and not the main springboards of his obsessions they really should be a bit more protective of him. In the end he is simply being taken advantage of - "look this precocious young kid can speak engagingly on Conservatism! isn't he cute? Aren't we all right??"
Its just too bad the parents don't realize how much this young kid is inviting the henpecking that is surely to come.
The thing is that he's just parroting talking points, not really saying anything. My organization, The Generation Project, has a really well-informed 15-year-old South Bronx kid named Ivan blogging for us about politics and current events. He has a distinctly liberal (and sarcastic) perspective; I'd love to see Krohn get out of his comfort zone and debate an urban, liberal counterpart.
http://www.thegenerationproject.org/blog/author/Ivan%20Guzman.aspx
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