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Why would America want to keep Germany down? We don't expect another reich anytime soon.
Energy is largely fungible, even if not 100%, so this doesn't really matter. And if relying on American military power means freeloading like they have been for years that isn't a benefit either.
It's not an American expression.
When NATO was formed, a British 'person of influence' (Lord Ismay, the first Secretary-General of NATO) summarized the purpose of the Alliance as 'to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.' Which is to say- to the Russians were only a middling reason, compared to the benefits of keeping the Americans involved as a way to mitigate of the issues of the European balance-of-power struggles (historically between France and others) and mitigate the Germans (whose mass destabilizes the European balance of power often unintentionally).
Due to its disproportionate size and position, the German Empire- even in its modern iteration as German- is disproportionately in the European strategic context. Just in terms of economics, the German economic unit starts to warp and shape its peripherary around itself (see how German media industries dominated much of the post-Soviet Warsaw Pact, including Poland) and militarily. Just on the basis of scale, if/when/whenever Germann militarizes, the resulting mass gives the German state disproportionate ability to influence its neighbors, and starts to form coalition that form to resist/teardown Germany... i.e., the European theaters of both world wars, among others.
Note that the German dynamic doesn't even require Germany to be 'a reich' or any equivalent thing. Any military alliance that can coopt Germany starts to shape the surrounding context as a coalition buildup for another major war- and that includes both OG-NATO (Warsaw Pact) and the Soviet Union (who- empowered in no small part via East Germany- led to NATO).
In the original formatting, among the narratives that convinced the Americans to join into NATO in the first place was a sense of inevitability of a European dissolution and another war if Germany was ever a dominant power in the European continent. America- as an offshort power greater than Germany- prevents the European power politics from balancing around- and against- Germany, which in turn prevents the need for buildup (in case Germany changes its mind) or the German counter-buildup (for fear of its neighbors).
In this sense, Germany down is about preconditions. As long as Germany is not 'up,' it can't lead to the conditions that led to the anti-german coalitions and the industrial era wars in Europe. As long as the Americans are the pre-eminent military power in Europe, Germany will be 'down.'
However, the American rational also has another, less spoken, point. Call it a realistic geopolitical priority.
It also included the point that the American has no fears of Europe so long as the European peninsula is not united under a polity hostile to the United States. Only a united European continent could conceivably muster the resources / naval capacity / means to credibly threaten a bridgehead into North America (likely using Iceland and Greenland as north atlantic staging grounds).
In the current context German reich-dom seems unfathomable because Germany and France are aligned and who would bound against them?
...except that Germany was quite happy to partner with the Russians not even a decade ago despite the security concerns of their eastern neighbors, and the German-French cordiality is generally dependent on France feeling it gets its way as often as not in a European Union framework it views itself as leading but which Britain no longer exists within to help counter-balance Germany, and all of this still occurs in a system where Germany is still a military dwarf and the US is uninvolved.
...and if the US and European alliance breaks, then Europe could conceivably be united under a single European polity (the EU), led by people who could adopt an anti-American posture (such as justifying EU centralization on grounds that the Americans are the real security threat), which could second conditions.
...at which point- on the theory of preventing preconditions- you start introducing an interest for the Americans to start encouraging the fragmentation of Europe- just so there isn't that sort of geopolitical threat vector.
Which would mean breaking the grip of the European Union...
...which the Germans, as a central figure / beneficiary for, would try to resist and enforce the EU as it benefits from...
...which could lead to a different sort of anti-German coalition, even if it would nominally be under anti-EU terms, as there are a number of states that are currently comfortable-enough with the EU which would very much not be if the EU started militarily suppressing it's dissidents and trying to enforce European sovereignity/suzerainty.
Another 'civil war' in Europe between the Germans and others in the European sphere is far from unthinkable. Unlikely in the near term, certainly, but less and less unlikely the further the rearmament goes and the more the Americans disengage.
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Nobody did in 1920 either, did they? Remember, NATO was founded to keep the Germans down, the Americans in, and the Russians out, and even if Germany is not going to form another Reich anytime soon, the United States (like the United Kingdom before it) arguably benefits greatly by disrupting the formation of alliances that could threaten it. The EU is such an alliance.
Well traditionally Germany got their gas from Russia. Now it doesn't. I do think it matters - there's not unlimited LNG out there.
I think this depends on your calculus of things. If the United States does not have to worry about resource preservation, it can afford to let Europe free-ride, and arguably benefits from doing so. If the United States must worry about limited resources, it needs to prioritize, in which case as you say the free-riding is not a benefit. I think it's been signaling since the Obama administration that it is trying to maybe someday prioritize the Pacific and that Europe needs to step off and stop freeloading. Of course if the EU develops its own military power and no longer needs American assistance to deal with Russia, then that also gives them more freedom to make foreign policy decisions (France has always been like this!) There are a lot of different ways to try to thread this needle, but it seems to me that the Biden and Trump administrations have different ideas about the limits of US power - the Trump administration seems to think that prioritizing is necessary; the Biden administration was trying to walk and chew gum at the same time.
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