Gas Pain at the Pump

Now that we've solved Covid (we haven't), and locked up Hillary Clinton (still free) it's time to  move on to the next thing righties are raging about.  Which brings us to gas prices.

The most popular gas station in America is the one in California that has the highest gas prices not just in the state that is infamous for high gas prices (the California gas tax), but the highest in the country.  Our media have descended upon this gas station like hungry hyenas, taking picture after picture and video after video in front of the price per gallon signs there.  Flashing these across news stations everywhere.  Outrage followed.

More toxic hyperbole about gas prices -- now on NBC's Nightly News. It's deceitful and hysterical to feature a crazy outlier like this. https://t.co/HFwReGqPx0 pic.twitter.com/SgN1GQd0if

— Dan Froomkin/PressWatchers.org (@froomkin) March 8, 2022

Of course, the wild card is Russia and their disgusting invasion of Ukraine, where by the way, they are murdering children.

The Republicans are urging President Biden to embargo Russian fuel, thereby raising American gas prices even further, so they can run the midterms entirely on the cost of fuel.  If they gave a shit about Ukraine and the children Putin is slaughtering there, they might say "hey, Joe, we should go to the American people together, like you and Mitch McConnell should do a bipartisan presser and explain to the American people why this action would be worth it."

And they might ask their owners, American gas companies, to cut back on their record breaking profits by absorbing some of the higher costs.  Read about their record-breaking profits here. 

But Republicans don't care about children unless they are 1) unborn 2) being sold out of the basement of a DC pizza joint by Hillary Clinton (this never happened).

So instead, we have this.

And it presents a moral quandary.  A lot of what people call "virtue signaling" from the left, who individually like to get on Twitter and announce they're happy to pay a little more for gas if it hurts Putin, who is a monster (he is).  Then you have the righties making post after post, on Twitter, and also in comment sections and on message boards, complete with pictures of that one gas station in California, screeching about gas prices and blaming, you guessed it, Biden.  These same folks can be seen also posting about how Biden should embargo Russian oil.  You can practically hear them salivating over the idea of what that would do to gas prices.

I fall into the first camp in that I don't really give a shit about gas prices.  I was brought up short by a Twitter mutual, who tweeted that after two years of Covid, she has depleted her savings and can barely pay her bills now.   She claimed that bragging you are happy to pay higher gas prices for moral reasons is elitism.

Of course, she's right...to a point.  Just how much do gas prices affect the average American?

So maybe not as much as our breathless media like to portray?

To be clear, after two years of Covid, my savings have also been depleted, and it's not like I'm wealthy.  I've had to cut back, but I haven't gotten to the point where gas prices affect me.  I gave this a lot of thought, and realized that the likely reason I don't even notice how much it costs to fill my tank is I hardly drive anywhere. 

I work from home and have for ten years.  Now that my best friend got called back to her office in the city, I have converted my second bedroom back to the office it was before she temporarily moved in with me.  I basically drive through 3 towns, my own, and the two closely surrounding it.  When I go into the city I take the train, and when I go out at night, I use Lyft so I can drink.

My daily lifestyle doesn't really get affected by gas prices, and that's a privilege of its own, let's face it.   Of course, higher gas prices cause prices to go up on goods and services,  but that's been happening since Covid, so I guess I'm used to it.  And let's be clear here; inflation has been a world wide problem, not just America's problem.  Shorter; Covid like, fucked things up man.  And it fucked them up all over the world. 

Still, while I can easily say I'm happy to pay more for gas if it hurts Putin (I am), it doesn't tell the whole story.   And the whole story is that many are hurt by this.  Just how much are they hurt by gas prices alone?  Likely very little, but in the overall inflationary picture, it matters, because it gives the voter a place to focus their rage.

I have seen a lot of people claiming that we are nothing like The Greatest Generation who happily went through deprivation during WWII.  Well, first of all, I think that's all overrated, and I doubt they were that happy about it.  They didn't have Twitter after all.  Secondly, the United States homeland was attacked, so  the circumstances were a little different, weren't they?  Well, so far, and God willing and the creek don't rise, that will hold. 

We're going to need to understand that pain at the pump will likely be taken out on the party in power.  And with the righties squealing, no one is going to forget about this.  Of course, many, MANY of them are in far more privileged positions than my own, and they don't give one shit about gas prices, which affect them the way dropping a penny affects me; not at all.  But the right wing in this country never misses a chance to exploit a tragedy, and they certainly have zero patriotism, so we are where we are. 

I know Biden is doing whatever he can do on this, but that won't matter either.  Nobody cares.  

And what happens if gas goes so high, for so long, that the Dems lose the midterms, and then the White House in 2024?

Well, Trump may be President again and that likes Putin just fine.  Just fine. 

There is  more than one way to conquer a nation. 

I don't have the answer for any of this, I don't think anyone does.  I don't think it  matters if you get on Twitter and proclaim you don't mind high gas prices, which can come off as smug and privileged.  And I don't think it  matters if you don't do that, and instead, show compassion and empathy to those it is hurting.  

The GOP is a modern day propaganda party, and, led by their largest (but by no means, only) propaganda outlet, FOX news, they will ride Putin's crimes straight back into  power if they can, and they will smile while they do it. 

And that does affect me.  But what can I do about it?  Nothing.  I can vote.  That's all.  I can help other people to vote.  And it likely won't be enough, but I've never been able to give up in my life.  I'm basically delusional and that's why I'm still here, or I'd have given up years ago and never made anything of myself.  But I did make something of  myself, and now I have to try and make something out of the traitors running half this country.  

Putin's  little bitches I call them.  And that's what they are.  But even though a part of me can face reality, and that's an important part of me, I'm also delusional you see.  So they'll be no white flag waiving from this little spot on the shit sandwich that is America, 2022.