Until recently, Republicans and conservative media loved, just loved talking about the price of gasoline. Indeed, “Remember how cheap gas was under Trump?” became a kind of universal answer to everything. Is there now overwhelming evidence that the former president colluded in a violent attempt to overthrow the 2020 election? “Really America doesn’t care about the January 6 committee. Gasoline is over $5 a gallon!” explained Representative Jim Jordan.
But now gas prices are falling. they are down over 50 cents per gallon at the pump; wholesale priceswhose changes usually appear later in retail prices, have fallen even more, suggesting that prices will continue to fall in the coming weeks. And there’s a palpable sense of panic on Fox News that has been reduced to whining about how the White House is “victory lap.”
Actually, as far as I can tell, Biden’s government officials are… remarkably understated by pointing out the good news (which is likely the result of a slowing global economy). The bigger point, though, is that Republican politicians’ focus on gas prices is extremely stupid. And when it comes back to bite them, that’s just poetic justice.
Why is focusing on gas prices stupid? Let me count the ways.
First, while presidential policies can have major implications for many things, the cost of filling your gas tank isn’t one of them. Gasoline prices, for the most part, reflect the price of crude oil – and crude oil prices are set in world markets, which is one of the reasons why inflation has risen around the world, not just in the United States. Government spending in the early months of the Biden administration may have contributed to headline inflation in the US – we can argue about how much – but it has hardly anything to do with gas prices.
Second, while gas was indeed cheap in 2020, it was cheap for a very bad reason: Global demand for oil was under pressure as the global economy reeled from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Third, even before the pandemic hit, gas prices were unsustainably low.
Little known fact: Prices at the pump plummeted during President Barack Obama’s second term, falling from about $3.70 a gallon in mid-2014 – about $4.50 in 2022 dollars — up to $2.23 on the eve of the 2016 election. News reports marveled at Obama’s reluctance to claim credit at the time.
What happened? Usually a boom in fracking, which caused US oil production to increase so much that prices around the world fell. However, it turned out that that production boom made no financial sense. Power companies borrowed huge sums to invest in new drilling, but never generated enough revenue to justify the cost. The Fracking Industry Lost hundreds of billions even before the pandemic hit.
So high gas prices weren’t President Biden’s fault, and given the disappearance of the forces that kept gas cheap, it’s hard to think of any policies — other than creating a global depression — that would lower prices to $2 a gallon. , or even $3 a gallon. Not that the Republicans are coming up with real policy proposals anyway.
But the GOP nevertheless chose the cheap opportunity to make the midterm elections largely about prices at the pump. And this focus on gas is now giving the party a stomachache as gas prices fall.
After all, it’s hard to maintain month after month that Biden deserves all the blame for rising gas prices, and then deny him any credit when they fall. The usual suspects try, of course, but it’s not likely to go well.
Some right-wing commentators are trying to take a longer look and point out that gas prices are still much higher than they were in 2020. This just happens to be true. But so much of their posts relied on voter amnesia — on their supporters not remembering what really happened in 2020 — that I have my doubts about how effective this line will be.
More broadly, many Wall Street analysts expect a sharp decline in inflation in the coming months, due to multiple factorsfrom falling used car prices to falling shipping costs, not just for gas prices. Market expectations of short-term inflation have fallen far.
If the analysts and the markets are right, we are probably heading for a period when inflation papers are better than the real thing; it is not clear whether underlying inflation has fallen much or not at all. But that’s not an argument that Republicans, who have done everything they can to silence the inflation debate, are well placed to make.
This has clear implications for the midterm elections. Republicans were counting on inflation to give them a huge win, despite not explaining what they would do about it. But if you look at the general ballot — which probably isn’t yet a reflection of falling gas prices — rather than Biden’s approval rating, the midterms look surprisingly competitive.
Maybe real Americans do care about violent attacks on democracy, overthrowing Roe v. Wade and so on.
If we continue to get good news on inflation, November could look very different than everyone expected.