In defense of C.J. Pearson, YouTube's 13-year-old pundit

You may not have heard of C.J. Pearson. I don't blame you. C.J. Pearson is a 13-year-old young black man who became a sensation on the right with his YouTube videos denouncing Barack Obama. He endorsed Ted Cruz for president and became chairman of "Teens for Ted Cruz." And then he abruptly changed his party affiliation to Democrat and declared his support for Bernie Sanders.

A guffaw was basically the reaction from the right. But there was something else. It appeared to show politics isn't for kids. "You don't have a world view. You're a kid who hasn't even been into the world," RedState.com co-founder Erick Erickson wrote in an open letter to Pearson. "Politics isn't for children," intones The Federalist's Bethany Mandel.

As someone who always chafed under the smug patronizing of adults, and as a card-carrying member of the Give Kids the Vote Party, I need to stand athwart self-satisfied nonsense and yell stop.

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Are many children immature? Do children make mistakes? Yes, absolutely.

Are no adults immature? Do adults never make mistakes? Give me a break.

My family has always cared about politics and we always discussed politics at the dinner table. I've had strong views about politics for as long as I remember. One reason you're reading this column and I get paid to write it is because I started reading American political blogs after 9/11, when I was 15.

In the run-up to the Iraq War I pitched an op-ed to the major newspapers in France, arguing against the Iraq War — from the right. The closest parallel to Iraq was Yugoslavia, I argued — a country without a common culture and no national history and no strong institutions, mostly held together by a strongman's skill at autocracy. Remove the strongman, and the country will dissolve into warring factions. Of course, no one would run it. I still think the world would be a better place if it had listened to a 15-year-old who read history books.

The point isn't that children are typically smarter or more mature than adults. The point, however, is that adults do typically and systematically underrate children and underestimate their capabilities. C.J. Pearson just changed his mind. And adults do this all the time. Ronald Reagan started out as a liberal Democrat. Both Hillary Clinton and Arianna Huffington started out as Republicans.

One of the most profound, primal human needs is to feel superior, and the easiest way for an adult to feel superior is to compare ourselves to children. There's nothing like that rush of grandeur that washes above you when you can explain to a kid why the sky is blue, or whisk a fragile object from his grip. From the Santa myth to learned helplessness, society validates this, creating a perpetuating cycle. We've been systematically condescended to as children, so we feel the need to do it to our own kids.

Children are "immature," sure, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. The fact that they still have a lot to learn doesn't mean they can't also teach us a lot. When looking at someone like Pearson, it's important to examine our motives and our behavior regarding other people. Isn't that what grown-ups do?

Even when they screw up, there are almost no valid reasons for treating people with condescension. "You're just a kid" is perhaps the worst reason.