Why I “Came Out” as a Conservative Artist

I have some pointed reasons as to why I “came out” as a conservative artist in 2020. Although I dislike this phrase for its melodrama and banality, one needs to speak the language of our time—if not for relatability, then for search terms and algorithms. Such is the piteous tightrope of the artist navigating a digital age.

Before clarifying my reasons this past week in the video below, I first splashed into a little YouTube corner as a conservative artist in early March, discussing communism and the facts of Saul Alinsky’s radical tactics alongside songs about Venezuela, Holodomor, and the effects of technology and propaganda. This came just before everything of this history-shifting year began to hit a fever pitch, first with the threat of a global pandemic and then right into race wars, vicious political battles, the shutting down of the global economy, and various empires seemingly on precipices of transformation, for good or ill. Like the artist often does—what exactly is that mysterious knowing the artist carries?—I must have had an instinct about some kind of major transition afoot. It began for me a new chapter.

I first wrote about the plight of the conservative artist in these pages back in April. The essence of my reasons in this follow-up video for packing up one tent and setting up another boils down to this: I felt compelled.

It is my current conviction that, if I desire to preserve my integrity, there is little to no room left for me in the regular arts and entertainment world I dreamed of partaking in throughout my childhood and into my adult years. While there is tragedy and sadness in that conviction, I realized that the other side of it all is that there must be millions of people aching for a new movement of artists—even a whole new industry and academy—who do in fact share their own convictions and who will reflect them in song, writing, radio, poetry, painting, and film in an excellent way. I realized I could be a pioneer, leading the charge for real hope in the cultural sphere. I realized I could be a harbinger of this hope to many, and I could start the laborious but rewarding process of rebuilding a civilization’s culture, long in a free fall descent and nearing its final crash.

It was therefore ultimately more in determined hope for the future than in fear of the zeitgeist that I stepped out. In that same hope I now share.

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The featured image is courtesy of Pixabay. It has been brightened for clarity.