The Upper Cut: 20,000 Posts and Counting, The Birth Of The Conservative Tribune

It was almost three years ago when a young man named Shaun Connell realized that his hair needed trimming. But sitting in the barber’s chair, he was to have a second realization that day — one that would change a lot of lives for the better, and some for the worse.

Early that morning, Connell was having the kind of conversation most of us might have at the barber — you know, the kind the dentist always seems to want to have with you while your mouth is full of fingers and dental instruments: “Creeping Shariah law, how the demographics in our city are changing, and how men weren’t acting like men anymore.”

The discussion had a decidedly conservative flavor to it — a sort of “Where are we really headed?” question and answer session in which neither participant liked the answers.

“It dawned on me that this wasn’t a rare conversation,” Connell told me last week. “I’d had it with dozens of people, often strangers.”

Thus, the idea behind Conservative Tribune was born during an early morning haircut at an Arkansas barbershop in 2013. The first post went live on Oct. 21 of that year.

Less than three years later, Conservative Tribune has published over 20,000 Facebook posts addressing those very topics — topics that Connell was convinced were under-covered by the mainstream media even though they apparently loomed large in the minds of Main Street, America.

“I wanted to make money, but the main goal was a thought experiment — to see if there was really as much demand for a ‘real topics people care about’ publication, rather than just another snobby liberal-type publication,” he explained.

“The media often reflects the biases and values of a very small segment of the American population,” Connell added, “especially the ‘elite’ media like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The topics discussed by the media almost entirely reflected those biases. Journalists openly were ‘snobby’ toward flyover America.”

So Connell, already an entrepreneur and an online publisher who had started the Capitalism Institute blog some time earlier, set out to see how great the demand for more conservative online content really was.

“When I started Conservative Tribune, I expected it to be an interesting small blog that would test out the waters to see how ‘in demand’ a website would be if it discussed things that real people actually cared about,” he said. “Topics like radical Islam, out-of-control crime, and how everything is supposedly ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ these days.”

It turned out to be pretty popular — a very pleasant surprise for Connell, who in 2015 sold the site to Liftable Media, a company owned by Floyd Brown, a conservative author and co-founder of advocacy group Citizens United, which at the time also operated Western Journalism and Liftable.com.

I had moved from being head writer to managing editor of Conservative Tribune shortly before the acquisition, and can attest to both the smoothness of the transition and the fact that Liftable Media was a great new home for Conservative Tribune’s ecumenically conservative approach to providing readers with interesting content.

And apparently, readers agree. CT published our 20,000th post last week. (It was this one, by prolific CT writer Wilmot Proviso, in case you are curious.)

Brown seemed pretty happy about how things have turned out, too.

“Conservative Tribune has established its importance to readers in a short time. I don’t know how our movement lived without it. It is the number one voice of conservatives in social media,” he told me. “Congratulations on your hard-earned success.”

His enthusiasm is understandable. CT reaches 25 million or more people every month. We have become one of the top 25 Facebook publishers, and last July Newswhip rated us the most-shared publisher there. (We assume Mark Zuckerberg has mixed feelings about that.)

That success has indeed been hard-earned. In 32 months, CT has published 20,237 posts (this will be 20,238, for those who are counting) on virtually every topic of conceivable interest to conservative readers (and some that, frankly, turned out not be). We try to keep our posts short and to the point, so you get the maximum amount of information in a minimum amount of time, while still taking the opportunity, where appropriate, to be entertaining.

Our writers come from a variety of conservative backgrounds — some are more socially conservative than others, some more libertarian, for example — but we all share a commitment to small government, individual liberty, free-market capitalism and support for our heroes in law enforcement and the military.

We knew Donald Trump was a serious candidate for the presidency long before the mainstream media realized it. (In fact, I’m not sure they’ve all figured that out even today.) When Charles Krauthammer or Stacey Dash said something noteworthy, we wanted to make sure you read it. If the liberal media tried to ignore some aspect of a given story to push its agenda, we worked to set the record straight.

That information was, we hope, both important and helpful in the 2014 midterm elections and the 2016 presidential primaries; we think it’s absolutely vital as we head into the party conventions and the general election in November.

We also let you know about families or individuals in need when it seems appropriate to do so, because we’ve learned that Conservative Tribune readers are a generous bunch.

And if we can find an excuse to throw in a post about Scarlett Johansson or Kirsten Dunst … well, we’re only human.

Then about eight months ago, The Upper Cut began appearing each Tuesday morning (well, most of the time), which gave me a chance as an editor who doesn’t get to write as much as I’d sometimes like to explore an issue or two in a little more depth than we normally do. (It also gave me a forum to sneak in additional Bruce Campbell references. You’re welcome.)

What’s next? Who knows? (Maybe my boss has something up his sleeve, but if he does, he’s not telling.)

All I can promise you is that Conservative Tribune will continue to offer you the best content we can to help keep you informed about domestic politics, world events and cultural issues, and occasionally drop in something weird or amusing to put a smile on your face. We’ll tell you the truth as we see it, let you know when others need your help, and do our best to do it all in a way that provides encouragement and hope for conservatives.

Because above all, we must remain optimistic that the American people, properly informed, will sort things out over time.

Oh, and we’ll also remain a thorn in the sides of liberals like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill de Blasio, and Elizabeth Warren.

And that ain’t nothing.

George Upper is the managing editor of Conservative Tribune. His weekly column, “The Upper Cut,” appears each Tuesday morning. In addition to sharing it on social media, you can also connect with him on Facebook or on Twitter @georgeupper.

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