Tea at Trianon: A Calculated Betrayal of America’s Working Families

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

Monday, August 31, 2026

A Calculated Betrayal of America’s Working Families

From Chronicles:

In high-immigration metro areas, demand for housing has outstripped supply for years. Rents and home prices have surged at a pace that outstrips increases in median incomes. A working family in the suburbs now competes not only with other local buyers but also with a growing population whose presence is the deliberate result of immigration policy.

The same pattern appears in public schools and hospitals. Districts with rapid demographic change face larger class sizes, strained special-education budgets, and longer wait times for everything from pediatric care to elective procedures. These are not theories, but the daily realities of families who play by the rules and still watch their children’s opportunities shrink.

Then there is inflation. More people competing for the same finite goods and services—housing, medical appointments, community college seats, even supermarket shelves—pushes prices higher. The Federal Reserve may talk about aggregate demand, but it hits the budget of a nurse, electrician, or mid-level office worker as lost purchasing power.

Meanwhile, the billionaire class remains insulated. They do not compete for jobs or public-school slots. They profit from the expanded labor pool that keeps wages in check and from the consumer base that buys the products their companies sell.

But can we count on political change? “Vote the bums out!” becomes a much less effective strategy when the voting rights of citizens are diluted. Rapid population growth through immigration decreases over time the weight of existing citizens’ ballots in congressional apportionment and in the Electoral College, as the census which determines these numbers counts all residents, not just citizens. Communities that once set their own priorities find those priorities reordered by demographic shifts they never voted for. This is not xenophobia; it is simple math.

And yet a powerful faction on the left—especially those associated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—insists that infinity migration is both a moral imperative and a path to economic justice. The DSA platform and its most prominent voices call for what amounts to open borders while simultaneously promising to deliver higher wages, stronger unions, and redistribution from the billionaire class to everyone else. These goals cannot coexist. You cannot flood the low- and mid-skill labor market and then claim you will raise the floor for native workers. You cannot expand the population competing for housing, healthcare, and education while claiming to prioritize the children already here. (Read more.)