Fans of American right-wing nutbaggery may remember the story of Jonathan Krohn, the 13-year-old conservative wunderkind who addressed the 2009 CPAC-fest (that is, the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC) denouncing the evils of socialism, abortion and healthcare to an enraptured audience. Krohn’s appearance, together with planet-sized benzo-addict Rush Limbaugh, turned the whole event into a Fellini movie. Krohn, home-schooled in Georgia, subsequently wrote a book, Defining Conservatism, which had him on the right-wing rubber chicken circuit for months at a time.
The Tea Party loved him, because he seemed to body forth their deepest belief — that their philosophy was not merely true, but the Truth, so why should it not come from the mouths of babes? Was there any intelligent political commentator connected with the movement who was willing to point out that a political revolution led by a child-prophet was not in rude health? Well there is now, namely Jonathan Krohn. Doogie Wowser is now 17, and as he told Politico last week: “It’s a 13-year-old kid saying stuff that he had heard for a long time. I live in Georgia. We’re inundated with conservative talk in Georgia.”
Krohn is planning to study at NYU, and his philosophical interests have turned to, well, philosophers — Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Kripke — rather than than the crackerjack conservatives that go under that title on the Right. His positions on most things — gay marriage, healthcare, etc — are now straight-down-the-line progressive, though he “doesn’t want to be labelled”. He does however want to study screenwriting and, as he told The Huffington Post, get a girlfriend with “cans as big as my head” — so he would appear to have survived his childhood admirably. The Right reacted to his conversion with soul-searching about the use of precocious childbots to sell political ideas.
Oh wait, no they didn’t. In the Daily Caller — the outfit whose White House correspondent heckled the President mid-speech last month — they managed to find numerous conservatives to denounce the child-Krohn as a “douche”, “arrogant”, etc, forgetting that, in Krohn’s words “I was 13. Thirteen.”
The funniest exchange has to come from Fox News Channel’s The Five, where conservative satirist Greg Gutfeld points out that the fault lies not in the child-stars but in themselves — at which point tragic himbo Eric Bolling weighs in: “I bit hook, line and sinker … I listen to his conversation about the Founding Fathers for half an hour and I’m like ‘Wow, this kid is really smart.’ We all did. We were suckered by him.”
Yeah that lyin’ Lolita in a red tie and a size four blue suit. He seduced them all. Up next, fish caught off Florida coast has “impeach John Roberts” written on inside of belly. Signs and wonders…
“…I’m like ‘Wow, this kid is really smart.’ …” People always sound smart when they keep saying stuff you agree with.