“Vanz Kant Danz” was the workaround title to the song John Fogerty wrote condemning Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz. It was originally “Zanz Kant Danz.” Forgerty was protesting Zaentz’s ownership of the publishing rights to the Creedence Clearwater Revival catalog. Fogerty altered the title and lyrics of the song to avoid a defamation lawsuit by Zaentz.
Vice President Vance spoke at the TPUSA AmericaFest event yesterday. RealClearPolitics has posted the text and video of Vance’s speech.
In part his speech responded to Ben Shapiro’s argument that conservatives needed to cordon off a fringe group from the movement for the sake of conservative principle and political decency. Vance rejected Shapiro’s argument. The New York Post provides this summary along with the context:
Vice President JD Vance waded into the civil war roiling the MAGA movement during a fiery speech at AmericaFest on Sunday, decrying conservative personalities for breaking out lists of fellow pundits to denounce.
While Vance, who employs Tucker Carlson’s son as a spokesperson, refrained from mentioning any specific names, he seemingly used his remarks to take a not-so-subtle swipe at conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro, who called out “grifters” in the movement last week.
“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeated purity tests,” Vance said Sunday.
“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” the veep continued. “Let me just say the best way to honor Charlie is that none of us here should be doing something after Charlie’s death that he himself refused to do in life.”
Last Thursday, Shapiro took to the stage at AmericaFest and aired out his concerns about “frauds and grifters” like Carlson, right-wing podcaster Candace Owens, and others whom he contended have harmed the conservative movement.
Shapiro’s tensions with Carlson and Owens had been brewing for months. During his speech, Shapiro tore into Owens for spewing conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
He blasted Carlson over his softball interview with white separatist Nick Fuentes and populist tendencies, while dinging Megyn Kelly and Steve Bannon.
The intellectual level of Vance’s explicit argument seems to me beneath him. Some translation is required. Vance is a no enemies on the right kind of guy. He’s sticking with his Qatar First buddy Tucker Carlson. Candace Owens is better left unmentioned, but he’s sticking with her too. If you’re looking for someone to call out the anti-Semites who are damaging the conservative movement, it ain’t him, babe. He’s opposed to “self-defeating purity tests.”
Message received. This guy is not on my side.
In an interview with Sohrab Ahmari (behind the UnHerd paywall), however, Vance came out againt anti-Semitism, whatever that means. I’ve been saying it’s a time for choosing. I thknk that means that Vance disagrees. Vance isn’t choosing. Vance also spoke up against those who attack his wife. What a guy.
“Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat shit. That’s my official policy as vice president of the United States.”@JDVance tells me in an interview on the Right’s civil war and other topics.https://t.co/sgf7ZCHV61
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) December 22, 2025
If Vance’s speech has a heart, it can be found in his argument that the United States is a Christian nation: “I want to say something here. The only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been—and by the grace of God, we always will be—a Christian nation….”
I may be mistaken, but this seems to ma a distortion. It leaves a lot out. It makes you wonder why we don’t have an established Christian religion. Vance would apparently argue that an established Christian religion would be un-Christian.
The Founders sought to overcome the wars of Christianity. They saw a problem where Vance sees none. In his analysis of “The American Founding As the Best Regime,” Harry Jaffa put it this way:
The American Revolution and the American Constitution became possible only because the rights of man as man—the rights of an enlightened humanity under the moral order of the laws of nature and of nature’s God—defined the ground of civic friendship, subordinating the ancient distinctions, not only of religion but of ethnicity and race. Among the most remarkable but least-remarked features of the Declaration of Independence is the passage in which, after assigning a measure of responsibility to “our British brethren” for the tyrannical acts of their government, the Americans “hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.” The ancient distinctions of Greek and barbarian, of Jew and Gentile, of Christian and infidel, here disappear as the ground of human friendship and therewith of civic association.
Reasonable minds can differ, but it also seems to me politically imprudent. Vance is thinking about 2028. He thinks this is how we win! I think Vanz kant danz.
