Tea at Trianon: The Rise of Trump

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The Rise of Trump

From PJB:

Buchanan, former speechwriter and White House adviser to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, is legendary amongst conservatives for his insurgent Republican presidential campaigns during the 1990s, which laid the intellectual groundwork for the conservative nation-state movement. Buchanan has been credited with presaging the revolt which has manifested itself in the 2016 election and for correctly predicting the consequences of mass migration, ideological free trade, and military adventurism — predictions which were largely dismissed at the time he made them.

This week, Trump seemed to scandalize the collective consciousness of professional Republicans with his Saturday debate performance in which he launched a full-throated assault on Bush Republicanism. Trump repudiated all three pillars of Republican globalism: namely, military adventurism, immigration multiculturalism, and trade globalism. (Read more.)

Unknown said...: I have yet to wrap my mind around what is really going on behind the Trump thing. I have run into a lot of well meaning, highly passionate people that see enough to know that the same old answers never have and never will provide what they want.

Populism is such a dangerous thing. An entire segment of the population feeling abandoned is a dangerous thing.

Trump seems to be filling that void, but I am just not certain he will represent what his populist supporters really want.; February 23, 2016 at 10:09:00 PM EST