Tea at Trianon: Forecast 2026: In the Vortex of the Whirl

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

Saturday, January 3, 2026

Forecast 2026: In the Vortex of the Whirl

From James Howard Kunstler:

2026 is the 250^th anniversary of our country’s conception. A few years later when the Constitution was ratified, we became a republic — “if you can keep it,” Ben Franklin cracked to anxious citizens waiting outside the great hall in Philadelphia. Our country was predicated on the resolve of virtuous men operating under the rule of law. We are lately under an astounding siege of villains without principle seeking to wreck the republic.
The big question facing the USA is whether our political life can become even more deranged than it has been in the past ten years, or can we possibly sober up. How is it we’re still arguing about men in women’s locker rooms? The self-evident has gone missing. A lot has gone very wrong.
The Woke-Jacobin war against our country continues, led by a Democratic Party made even more vicious, depraved, and insane by the 2024 election victory of Mr. Trump, who was left a broken polity after the four-year tableau vivant of “Joe Biden.” Can our nation recover its balance, its sense of purpose, its traction in history? Can we reconstruct a coherent common culture that will afford us some means to carry on as an upright people? I will try to answer without wasting pixels. (Read more.)