In my notebooks, physical or virtual, I keep a running list of stories that interest me, reactions to events, seeds of future writing. Some of these notes grow into books; some end up used as jokes on my groaning children; some die on the vine. But I thought I might occasionally share some speculative riffing on these notebook items with our supporting subscribers, as thanks.
In today’s Notebook:
— J.D. Vance goes Nazisplaining in…Germany
— Why DOGE isn’t unprecedented but part of a tradition
— And some new ideas of what a resurgent Democratic Party could look like
Nazisplaining
In his defense, Vice President J.D. Vance already had many of the leading risk factors for becoming a person who Explains Things to People. He is a man. He is a lawyer. He went to Yale. He worked in Silicon Valley. He spends time with podcasters the way some people spend time with their kids. Even so, nothing could prepare me for Vance’s words this weekend in Germany.
At the big (in?)security conference in Munich, Vance decided to Nazisplain German history to, you guessed it, Germany.
Kühn!
The Germans, he Nazisplained, are too Lugershy about their own past. Their national so-called “firewall”
This post was originally published on The.Ink.