Tea at Trianon: The Intellectual Roots of Conservative Populism

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, July 1, 2025

The Intellectual Roots of Conservative Populism

From Amuse on X:

In the history of American political thought, few figures have woven threads as enduring as William F. Buckley Jr. In Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, Sam Tanenhaus delivers a monumental work that is not only a biography but a chronicle of American conservatism's intellectual genesis. The book has rightly been heralded as exhaustive, fair, and at times unexpectedly affectionate, offering a panoramic view of a man whose influence radiates outward through Rush Limbaugh's booming radio voice, Newt Gingrich's congressional conquest, and ultimately, Donald Trump's insurgent nationalism. Let us be precise. Conservatism as we know it today, populist, nationalist, combative, media-savvy, did not spring fully formed from the head of Trump. Nor was it merely a reaction to the cultural revolutions of the 1960s or the regulatory excesses of the administrative state. It was an intellectual project first, and Buckley was its architect. What Tanenhaus accomplishes in his 1,000-page biography is the detailed excavation of this foundation. His prose is brisk and often sparkling, his research thorough and layered, and above all, his tone even-handed. For conservatives wary of a center-left biographer, the relief is considerable. This is not a hatchet job. It is a portrait in full. (Read more.)