Where I Stand

Welcome to The Conservatory! I hope to tell more about myself in future posts, and maybe even get away from politics sometimes, but I want to dedicate this first post to giving more detail about The Conservatory, where I stand politically, and what I hope to spend most of my time here writing about.

As you might have figured out by now, this is a blog about politics. Not a news site, but an openly conservative opinion site—you should assume that anything you read here is strictly my own opinion, unless otherwise noted. I am a conservative Republican, and for me at least the order of those two words is important: Conservative first, Republican second.

Which leads me to my second disclaimer: I am, and by extension The Conservatory is, #NeverTrump. I’ll save the specific reasons why for a dedicated future post, but I opposed Donald Trump throughout the primary, and my reasons are (for me at least) strong enough to continue to do so in the general election. I will likely vote for either a third-party or write-in candidate come November. I say all of this as full disclosure, since for the immediate future the majority of postings will likely concern Trump, and you the reader have the right to know where I stand from the outset.

So this blog will be conservative first, Republican second, and #NeverTrump always. Most posts will be political, although like most other normal people I do have other interests outside of politics, and I reserve the right to occasionally discuss those other interests. But those posts will be the exceptions which prove the rule.

And how did I come up with the name for The Conservatory? I wanted a name that elegantly said what the blog would be about, incorporating a description of my own political leanings, and moved on from there. The word “conservatory”, beyond just sounding similar to “conservative”, also nicely embodies what I want this space to be about. A conservatory can be either a college specializing in the teaching of music and other art, or a space to house and protect flowers and other plants. The word comes from the same root as both “conservative” and “conservation”, the Latin word conservare, meaning “to preserve”. In a time when American conservative philosophy and governing principles seem under assault and in retreat, both from the Left and an increasing number of Republicans led by Donald Trump, my hope is that The Conservatory will serve as one of many safe houses for those principles and the people who still adhere to them.