The self-consciously woke, anti-Trump, slightly bizarre Jaden Smith is on a path to the US presidency

He's everything a great leader should be, and don't we owe it to society to champion our young people who are brave enough to say these things?

Just imagine the scene on inauguration day if Trump – a moronic, decaying bison, was replaced by Smith – a cool, skirt-wearing youth-guru (Getty)

For some he is a “woke” thought leader, enlightened beyond his years. For others, he is a privileged, precocious hot-take machine. One thing’s for sure: when Jaden Smith opens his mouth, people listen.

I hope his star will continue to rise. In fact, given he once said his aim is “really working towards just fixing the whole planet Earth,” I have a curious dream of seeing him in the White House. Jaden Smith: leader of the free world.

He certainly knows his own opinions. In an interview that went viral on Twitter this week, he compared schools to prisons, arguing: “We’re preparing everyone to go to prison through the schools.”

He said schools are not about education, but “subconsciously getting you to have a fixed response to authority”, that they are “breeding us to learn to work a 9-5 and work in a factory”.

He explained: “The fact that you have the long hallways, the fact that you have a fixed responsibility to authority, the fact that there is a specific time to go outside and play, and there’s a specific time you could come back in and the way that you’re notified by that happening is by the bells.”

His remarks drew admiration and criticism but he’s used to both: he was famous before he was even born. In Will Smith’s video for his cover of Just The Two Of Us, his wife Jada rubbed her pregnant belly, which was nurturing the foetal Jaden.

He has since become known for his own opinions as much as for his famous parents. In 2013, at the age of 15, the home-schooled Jaden declared that "if everybody in the world dropped out of school, we would have a much more intelligent society".

The following year, during an interview alongside his sister Willow, he told the New York Times: “It’s proven that how time moves for you depends on where you are in the universe. It’s relative to beings and other places. But on the level of being here on earth, if you are aware in a moment, one second can last a year.”

He talked about prana energy in babies and said: “When one thought goes into your mind, it’s not just one thought, it has to bounce off both hemispheres of the brain...When you think about an apple, you also think about the opposite of an apple.”

Jaden and Willow were roundly mocked after the interview was published. Billboard called them “totally bonkers”, ABC said they were “outrageous” and Time called them “weird”. It was almost a David Icke-on-Wogan moment.

Yet the people most exasperated by Jaden’s anti-establishment remarks weren’t those who disagree with him but actually those who agree.

It seems nothing is more annoying than someone else walking our own talk. Lots of people have identified the same problems with society as Jaden, but they have continued to conform regardless. They think outside the box but live within it.

So then they get furious and antagonistic towards anyone who lives congruently with these views, and all the more so when that person is young and attractive.

The argument comes back that it’s easy for people like Jaden to be “woke” – after all he is rich, famous and privileged. But I think it is his privilege, or at least what he has done with it, that means he could be a powerful leader.

Jaden is the anti-Trump: thoughtful, articulate, compassionate and deep. Where Trump used his privilege to become an arse, Smith wants to enlighten a generation.

Just imagine the scene on inauguration day if Trump – a moronic, decaying bison, was replaced by Smith – a cool, skirt-wearing youth-guru.

What sort of president would Jaden be?

He once said: “I really want to make it so people don’t have to die to pay bills and just work to survive. So that they can work to actually live and do the things that they love to do. It also contributes towards society. It makes society a better place. That’s the ultimate goal.”

And after he wore a white Batman costume to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s wedding, he explained: “I felt as though I needed to protect everyone there.”

Well, it works for me. Vote early, vote Jaden!