Tea at Trianon: Leftist Hysteria in Minneapolis Is About Votes, Not Immigrants

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 31, 2026

Leftist Hysteria in Minneapolis Is About Votes, Not Immigrants

From Chronicles:

President Trump’s opponents are betting heavily that the political fallout from the thoroughly well-organized anti-ICE demonstrations by largely white residents in Minnesota’s Twin Cities will advance their aims. In response to what authorities have described as the largest anti-illegal immigrant operation in American history, tens of thousands of protestors were in the streets over the weekend, braving persistent subzero temperatures to make their voices heard.

Some hopeful leftists are already describing these localized events as the turning point in stopping Donald Trump. Others, including former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who themselves presided over millions of deportations at a time when their party still took our country’s immigration and border control laws seriously, are full of apocalyptic rhetoric about the future of democracy and suggest that the very ideals of America are at stake.

Some protestors are visibly following a detailed playbook shared on Signal group chats, which were exposed and published on X by independent journalist Cam Higby. This playbook offers instructions on coordinating activists to harass, frustrate, and disrupt ICE actions as they unfold. Higby released a list of the Signal chat’s administrators, and he and others also speculated that an admin on the Signal chats named “Flan” is Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. Flanagan has released a statement denying those allegations. FBI Director Kash Patel said he has opened an investigation into the Signal chats.

According to media reports, the Minnesota National Guard was under orders to provide the protestors with coffee and donuts, while local law enforcement appears either under orders or unwilling to assist federal agents. Egged on by state and local politicians to be confrontational, many of the protestors have become violent, attacking businesses where ICE agents eat and sleep and harassing these agents and, in some cases, civilians who simply look like they might be ICE agents, in public places. (Read more.)