On February 27, 2009, attendees at the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference were addressed by Jonathan Krohn, a precocious fourteen-year-old who helpfully informed his audience that the Republican Party is merely the “shell” to conservatism’s “filling.” In the aftermath of Krohn’s unexpectedly rousing three-minute speech, various papers and bloggers waxed enthusiastic about the young man. One blogger wondered if he was the “GOP’s Obama-To-Be”; Wonkette essentially declared Krohn the future of the GOP. The New York Times ran a feature on him last Saturday, noting that:
Jonathan, an experienced child actor, rocked the house with a three-minute speech, which was remarkable not so much for what he said, but his electrifying delivery. The speech was part pep talk, part book promotion. By Saturday morning, an archdeacon of the movement was saying, “I’m Bill Bennett: I used to work for Ronald Reagan and now I’m a colleague of Jonathan Krohn’s!”
And Krohn’s hometown paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, gushed that:
the pint-sized, sweater vest-favoring author of an 86-page book, “Define Conservatism,” energized the conservative base and inspired attendees, who were on their feet by the end of his brief speech.
The GOP has always welcomed its share of relatively young commentators. David Brock became a staffer at the weekly conservative magazine Insight soon after graduating from college. Dinesh D’Souza earned fame for his antics as a staffer at The Dartmouth Review while still an undergraduate. Even William F. Buckley finished God and Man at Yale when he was only twenty-six.
But the GOP also is strangely enamored of really, really young commentators. Take teenage radio host Ben Ferguson (now in his 20s), the youngest nationally syndicated radio personality in the United States, who addressed the Republican National Convention in 2004. Or Ben Shapiro, the Los Angeles student who, at seventeen, became America’s youngest nationally syndicated columnist and later wrote Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth. Or Kyle Williams, the Oklahoma adolescent hired as a WorldNetDaily columnist at age thirteen.
Where do all these pedantic conservative adolescents come from? Home-school, usually. (Krohn, Ferguson, Shapiro, and Williams were all home-schoolers.) Most home-school parents are Christian conservatives, proponents of ideologically tinged curricula and non-traditional educational pursuits, such as becoming a nationally syndicated radio host. (Hey, it’s just as academically valid as wood shop.) Most children in traditional schools are dissuaded from pursuing these sorts of goals—not by their teachers, but by their fellow students. For a typical high schooler, there are few hobbies—aside from high fashion or Magic: The Gathering—more likely to result in a wedgie than an intense interest in supply-side economics or the Kirkpatrick Doctrine.
And yet, paradoxically, teenagers make very good conservatives. The basic conservative message is simple and sort of beautiful when you first discover it. High school is the period when people first begin to realize that some things in life, particularly “programs”, don’t work very well; that regulations are made for and enforced by stupid people, life is not fair, and all of those damn second-handers are always mucking stuff up. When a highly intelligent youth discovers a philosophy that extols individualism, pure reason, and selfishness, it can look pretty amazing. And if that kid is institutionally empowered by a schooling environment that encourages him to pursue his own interests for class credit? Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Jonathan Krohn.
So conservatism can be good for teenagers. But are these teenagers good for the Republican Party? It’s somewhat hard to take seriously a movement that lionizes a child pundit prone to such proclamations as “Barack Obama is the most left-wing president in my lifetime.” It is not that Krohn is much more eloquent than his adult counterparts. In the young man’s book, Define Conservatism, he explains that a conservative is someone who believes in:
1. Life
2. Personal Responsibility
3. Less Government
4. The Founding Principles
These are hardly the sort of revelations that would have eluded William F. Buckley.
Krohn already makes more sense than Coulter. And he may grow up to be a significant conservative voice. Or not. As with a child preacher, it's way too early to assume that he will based upon his speeches or writings, which are typical of what one would expect from a politically interested child of his age. But he's obviously smart enough to outshine many of today's political commentators - on both sides of the aisle - assuming he applies himself. His performance as a platform speaker on the other hand? Very impressive.
#1 Posted by Aaron, CJR on Thu 12 Mar 2009 at 05:50 PM
you know, it was kind of funny when michael j. fox gave us the antics of alex p. keaton 20 years ago. but it's not cute now. this kid should be shoplifting rock 'n' roll records or chasing girls and leave the politco schtick until he's at least old enough to vote.
#2 Posted by JWard, CJR on Thu 12 Mar 2009 at 09:47 PM
Forget, please, "conservatism." It has been, operationally, de facto, Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson's Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
"[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth."
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
#3 Posted by John Lofton, Recovering Republican, CJR on Thu 12 Mar 2009 at 11:24 PM
I think part of the appeal is the idea that conservatism is so simple, Look! Even a child gets it! And the corollary, of course, is that liberals and the media are definitely not smarter than a 5th grader. I think it's a way of promoting the assumed simplicity of their message and, at the same time, denigrating the opposing view.
#4 Posted by Mike P, CJR on Fri 13 Mar 2009 at 11:05 AM
great piece, dan. i'm wondering, though, how many non-conservatives actually find krohn "rather charming"? after reading the times piece about him, i kind of expected to. then i watched the video and found out i... didn't.
#5 Posted by greg marx, CJR on Fri 13 Mar 2009 at 02:01 PM
FACT CHECK
Mr Luzer makes a misleading statement about Ben Ferguson when he writes:
"Take teenage radio host Ben Ferguson (now in his 20s), the youngest nationally syndicated radio personality in the United States, who addressed the Republican National Convention in 2004."
Reading this, one would think Ben Ferguson addressed the GOP as a teenager. True, he started in radio at age 13. But he was born 28 August 1981, making him 23 years old at the time and a ten-year veteran radio commentator when he addressed the GOP convention.
#6 Posted by Ray Marr, CJR on Fri 13 Mar 2009 at 02:50 PM
Excellent piece. One wonders what happened to all the grownups that used to people the Republican Party (Lowell Weicker, Abe Ribicoff, Dwight Eisenhower, etc.) Cliff White (Goldwater's Atwater) started the rock rolling. This beget Nixon, which beget Reagan, which beget Bush and W. Petulance as policy. Seems it's time to put away childish things.
#7 Posted by edward ericson jr., CJR on Sun 15 Mar 2009 at 01:14 PM