The Briefing Room

A new series from the founders of Postliberal Order offering brief commentary on the prior week’s breaking news.

As the news cycle has accelerated with a White House working at lightning speed, it’s hard to keep up with the news, let alone reflect upon it. So we are launching a regular weekly series with news briefings from our founders, Patrick Deneen, Gladden Pappin, and Chad Pecknold — commentary to help unpack and illumine the timeline. Appearing each Monday, as an added benefit to paid subscribers of PLO.

J.D. Vance’s extraordinary speech in Munich has rightly been widely discussed as a watershed moment in U.S.-European relations. Much of its content has been parceled out as video snippets or quotes on social media platforms where people have celebrated (or denounced) the many “points” that he scored on his European audience — but in doing so, many have also missed its overarching message.

I suspect even those who have watched its full twenty minutes or read the whole transcript may not have discerned its organizing principle…