Last week, the dominant political and royal story was Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK, and the left-behind Windsors doing the most to make Trump feel like the prettiest princess ever. The Windsors gave Trump a weird carriage procession (in which they just went around in a circle on the grounds of Windsor Castle), a fancy state banquet and face-time with the Princess of Wales. Gold-clad Kate enjoyed being Trump’s perfect MAGA princess. As I said, this was the big story last week. So tell me why the Daily Mail openly admitted to sending reporters to Montecito at the same time as the state visit? Tell me why the left-behinds preening for fascism wasn’t good enough, and they had to stalk Prince Harry and Meghan? And tell me why the Kate-stan royalists were openly fantasizing about how the state visit made the Sussexes jealous?? The whole thing is deranged. I still believe that Meghan dropped that photo in her garden last week as a reminder that she’s happy and free and she doesn’t have to breathe in Trump’s diaper fumes. Which brings me to this piece in the Royalist Substack, all about how Meghan played her hand poorly, and Meghan could have been at Windsor Castle, preening to Trump!
Looking at a photograph that Meghan Markle posted on Wednesday of herself tending strawberries on Instagram, to promote her As Ever jam brand, as Kate Middleton wowed the world at a state dinner and reduced Donald Trump to politeness, was an astonishing reminder of just how badly Meghan has played what, just seven short years ago, looked like a very, very good hand.
In Windsor, Britain wheeled out maximum soft power for a Trump state visit: Kate in Philippa Lepley’s champagne-gold lace at the banquet, then arm-in-arm with Melania in Frogmore Gardens, beaming with Scouts and handing over honey from her hives. Park the politics of the Trump and Melania show, you cannot dispute that Kate is right at the fulcrum of power.
In Montecito, meanwhile, Meghan posted a serenely styled clip from her “magical” garden, blue dress and fedora just so, nudging followers to buy overpriced jam. Whatever the intent, the contrast was brutal: Kate operating at head-of-state altitude; Meghan filming content to sell condiments. This was entirely avoidable.
I have a lot of sympathy with Meghan and Harry’s decision to leave the royal family. In a way, it’s the only sensible response to being born into that institution. But to waste the once-in-a-generation profile those guys had, to sell it for a few million dollars as the strategy hopped from grievance to glossy to goods and a relaunch of The Tig illustrated with “me picking strawberries”? What?
Just imagine, for a moment, a world where Meghan had played a longer game. She could have owned last week’s state as the American duchess, a modern multicultural woman astride both cultures. Some might say her comments about Trump in the past would have made such an accommodation impossible. No, plenty of people have been rude about Trump and later shaken his hand. He once joked about sleeping with Princess Diana and criticized Kate for sunbathing topless, and everyone seems to have got past that.
Others might say, “Maybe she didn’t want to do that.” Well, some have greatness thrust upon them. Meghan certainly did. What a terrible shame that she and Harry just couldn’t rise to the challenge, and instead spent last week in the garden dreaming up ways to move honey.
Of all the delusional what-ifs, this one might take the cake. It’s right up there with “If Diana was still alive, she would hate what Harry and Meghan did!” Now the royalists are arguing that Harry and Meghan should have stayed in England, being smeared, abused and harassed on an hourly basis, all so Meghan could smile and simper at Donald Trump at a state banquet? What’s even stupider is that even in that magical scenario where the Sussexes stayed, THEY WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN INVITED TO THE STATE BANQUET. Remember? William, Kate, Charles and Camilla were so unsettled by the Sussexes’ charisma and star-power, they always pushed H&M aside and refused to invite them to these kinds of events. And since this is all projection on the royalists’ part, let me once again remind everyone that it would have been perfectly possible for the Windsors to use the Sussexes’ star power to benefit the institution, but the Windsors preferred to shoot themselves in the d–k and blame H&M for not wanting to be smeared and abused.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images and As Ever’s Instagram.
