Tea at Trianon: Trump’s Next Two Years Can Be His Greatest

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, November 10, 2026

Trump’s Next Two Years Can Be His Greatest

From The Enterprise:

Donald Trump should enter January ready to govern with confidence. Last Tuesday the Democrat Party captured both the House and the Senate, then joined its willing accomplices in the drive-by media in spending the week composing his political obituary. They mistake a congressional majority for control of the presidency. Chuck Schumer will run the Senate calendar and Hakeem Jeffries will hold the House gavel. Neither will inherit the executive branch, its lawful authority, or the money already appropriated for Trump’s priorities.
His agenda never depended on a Republican Congress that, for most of two years, acted like an obstacle wearing an ally’s uniform. Chasing 218 House votes and 60 Senate votes for bills that never arrived consumed attention better spent governing. Victor Davis Hanson identified the opportunity within days of the results: a nominal majority of 53 senators can mean 53 private vetoes. Divided government can strip those vetoes of their bargaining value. (Read more.)