JD Vance Admits He Doesn't Understand Diplomacy, Has Been Writing a Book

The Book Nobody Asked For

Vance's second memoir, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, dropped recently and chronicles his spiritual journey with all the urgency of a man who needs something to talk about that isn't the war. Professional book critics have largely been unkind, as The Guardian reports. Regular readers haven't had much of a chance to weigh in at all.

Amazon has restricted reviews to verified purchasers only, citing "unusual review activity" -- which is Amazon's diplomatic way of saying the one-star brigade showed up in force. Goodreads, which Amazon also owns, suspended reviews entirely. The book has essentially been placed in a protective glass case, safe from the public, like a relic or a particularly embarrassing photo.

For what it's worth, Vance's wife Usha recently logged Communion as finished on her personal Goodreads account, according to The Guardian. She has not, as yet, left a review. Smart woman.

Sir, This Is a Talk Show

Last week Vance appeared on The View, where Whoopi Goldberg and the hosts attempted to discuss, you know, the geopolitical crisis his administration is presiding over. Vance had other ideas. "Let's talk about the book -- I'm here to sell books," he reportedly said, actually begging daytime television hosts to give him a pass on the Iran situation.

Goldberg, to her credit, did not give him the pass. "Eventually we will," she told him, "but this is a good opportunity for us to get some clarity on stuff."

Vance later told reporters that appearing on The View gave him "great experience in very hostile negotiations," which is either a joke or a confession, depending on how charitable you're feeling. The Guardian flagged the comment. Either way, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of his diplomatic preparation.

The Fox News Confession That Should Have Been a Bigger Deal

A couple of days after The View appearance, Vance went on Fox News and said something that, in any functional media environment, would have been the lead story on every network for a week. The vice president of the United States, in the middle of active negotiations with Iran, expressed genuine frustration with diplomatic protocols and admitted: "I don't really understand these things. I'm trying to be respectful. Given my position in the last year-and-a-half, I have to care about diplomatic protocols all of a sudden."

All of a sudden. A year and a half in. About the Iran war.

The Fox hosts, The Guardian notes, were not alarmed. One of them chuckled and said "Love it." Because of course they did. Meanwhile, Trump himself has described the situation as a potential "economic catastrophe" in progress. The number two official in the executive branch is essentially doing an on-the-job learning arc on the same timeline as the catastrophe.

Imagine Kamala Harris saying she didn't really understand diplomacy during active foreign policy negotiations. Picture what Fox News would have done with that clip. They would have played it on loop until the sun burned out.

Thirty-Three Babies and a Book About Bell Hooks

Here is a fun fact buried in The Guardian's piece: Vance uses the word "babies" 33 times in Communion. The man is nothing if not on-brand. He also walks back his infamous "childless cat ladies" line in the book, calling it "one of the dumbest things he ever said." Growth! And yet the obsession with falling birthrates apparently fills the rest of the space where that one dumb thing used to live.

Also worth mentioning: The Guardian points out that Vance's two book titles appear to be borrowed from the Black feminist writer bell hooks, who wrote Appalachian Elegy and Communion: The Female Search for Love. Hillbilly Elegy. Communion. The man who built a political career partly on sneering at liberal elites has been quietly cribbing titles from a foundational figure in feminist literary theory. Life contains multitudes.

Vance has a third child, a baby on the way, and a full-time job managing a country in the middle of a war it stumbled into. According to The Guardian, the domestic labor in the Vance household has been handled significantly by his mother-in-law and wife. Communion does not appear to contain a chapter on this arrangement.

The Part Where We Remember What His Job Actually Is

Here is what Vance is supposed to be doing right now. The United States is in some version of a war with Iran. Trump has called the economic fallout potentially catastrophic. Negotiations are active. The vice president is the next in line for the presidency.

Instead, Vance is on The View pitching a spiritual memoir, telling Fox News he doesn't quite get how diplomacy works yet, and giving interviews where his biggest expressed frustration seems to be that world events keep interrupting his book tour. This is not a caricature. These are the things that actually happened last week, as reported by The Guardian.

The book is called Finding My Way Back to Faith. Whether that extends to finding his way back to doing his actual job remains, at press time, unclear.