So there’s a 14-year old right wing pundit (no, the 4 and 1 are not reversed) named Jonathan Krohn and he is awesome! Not only does he speak with a smugness that makes every sentence sound like it’s prefaced with, “As someone who has already earned his place in heaven, I believe…,” but he appears to think conservative principles didn’t, by their nature, lay the seeds of our current calamity. However, instead of praising the sharpness of his Neal-from-Freaks & Geeks-as-Stepford-Wife fashion sense, or admiring how valiantly he toes the edge of coming off as heterosexual, let’s look at why he likes conservatism enough to not only write a book about it, but to address last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference where he was heralded as a prodigy.
Our Johnny Boy (I like him so much I’m giving him a populist moniker.) grew up in the modern frontier of the Atlanta suburbs, the kind of place where young ruffians savagely inflict minor property damage, sometimes as often as once a year, and where loud noises can legally occur as late as 9pm. A post-tween lives on his wits and makes his own luck in places like this, and Johnny Boy was no exception, toughening up in church plays and soaking in the teachings of Bill Bennet, a chain-smoking high-stakes gambler who had a sideline in turning boys into men and who sometimes joked a little too fondly about eugenics on the radio.
Johnny K, as he is known when dispensing street knowledge, also learned about social ills, and how de-funding anything with the words “child,” “health,” or “outreach” in it’s name can solve them, by being homeschooled. This experience gave him the kind of one-on-one attention and instruction geared towards his strengths that a public school could never provide, due to a combination of the socialism clause in the teacher’s union contracts and the potential presence of Ebonics.
At 14 years old, he understands that it isn’t a flaw in the system when working 60 hours a week between two jobs nets barely enough money to support a family; it’s just the market doing it’s job. Plus, since Jesus was a conservative, it’s obvious that one’s wealth is proportionate to one’s righteousness anyhow.
Provided he can remain closeted (mostly about being thoughtful enough to write a book in the first place) and get at least two decent press photos taken with firearms, this kid could evolve into a real contender when, 20 or 30 years down the line, whatever’s left of the American right needs a Great White Hope. Until then, he’s learning Arabic so he can do his part wipe out the Islamic threat to civilization one believer at a time. However, like a true conservative, he’s not doing it by joining the military. No, our Johnny Boy will be assuming a missionary position. (HEY-O!)
Does he do Bat-mitzfahs?
Give the kid a break, he’s 14. As for your points, it might be fair to say that conservative principles didn’t lay the groundwork for the financial crisis, since, as critics on both the left and right have accurately noted, the Bush White House and its lapdog Congress were hardly conservative. They were socialists who just happened to favor the upward wealth redistribution model.
Also when speaking of education you may want to take extra care to avoid careless grammatical errors like putting an apostrophe in “its” when using it as a possessive.
@Brendan
*I am giving him a break, I’m saying that he believes dangerous nonsense because he’s been brought up in circumstances that challenged absolutely none of it and that he feels totally confident in spouting off about these things because he’s made the most of the advantages he’s been given by developing into a solid performer. I don’t know if this tendency to take everything for granted w/r/t one’s level of privelage is specific to Millenials or if it’s just being young period but it’s getting to the point where it grosses me out more each week. That said, there are levels on which I find him totally impressive. I mean, I’m the only other person I know who wrote a book at 14 (rightfully unpublished)and I was the weird articulate kid in high school, so I feel a little bit of empathy for him. However, he comes across as so profoundly arrogant(he refers to himself as man of influence in the NYT), so deeply cynical (liberalism is predicated on a romantic myth that only pussies believe while pseudo-libertarian rugged individualism is presumed to be the attainable norm), and so full of smug certitude that I think a snarky enumeration of what makes someone like this is warranted.
*Free enterprise set free to the point where it can ostensibly stay alive on a scaffold of exponentiating lies is exactly what gave us our current mess.
*It’s considered good manners to at least correctly use commas when you’re deigning to correct a plural vs. possessive slipup.
All I keep thinking is Ferguson from Clarissa Explains It All
14 is more than old enough to call an asshat an asshat. I don’t need some snot-nosed little shit less than half my age and with ZERO real world experience telling me why everything I believe in is sending me and my country straight to hell.
I really hope the other kids at this fuckwit’s school beat the shit out of him daily.
Excellent article. It is no wonder CPAC looks to him as a prodigy. CPAC and it’s followers are a neo-con cult that consider the words of Rush Limbaugh to be gospel. This young man is very adept as regurgitating the party mantra.
Yeah, no; I made it :38 seconds.
Whatts Hot on Youtube…
The disc posisioned at the top of the UK Album Chart on the 1st of March with 97,254 albums sold, giving them their fourth consecutive number one album in the UK……