New Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson doesn't seem to have done himself any favors when he catapulted himself from a non-legislating backbencher to one of the most prominent positions on Capitol Hill. Until now, reporters had little interest in combing through Johnson's life before Congress. But now that he’s speaker, a video of him casually suggesting to a crowd that he and his 17-year-old son monitor each other's porn-viewing habits becomes a story worth—wait, hold on, back up there.
Johnson and his son do what together? Per Rolling Stone:
“It sends a report to your accountability partner. My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. He’s 17. So he and I get a report about all the things that are on our phones, all of our devices, once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice. I’m proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate.”
Right off the bat, having an "accountability partner" monitoring your “objectionable” content is ew. Second of all, making your teenage son your "accountability partner" is a double-layered ew since that seems about the worst choice for an “accountability partner”—and look, I'm sorry, I'm just not going to be able to get that horrifyingly loaded phrase out of my head, nor rid myself of the notion that this is all a very roundabout way to make sure any porn sent to your device as unwanted spam, phishing attempts, or for any other reason immediately gets forwarded to your teen son.
