Amid the mania of Trump tweeting, this one passed millions of computer screens on the 4th of July
Gas prices are the lowest in the U.S. in over ten years! I would like to see them go even lower.
Oh, the pain …
There is an old adage: a lie goes halfway around the world before the truth gets out of bed.
It is painful trying to chase down and refute deceit — far more hear and absorb the deceit than ever hear the truthful refutation.
And, when the deceiver occupies the Oval Office and has the megaphone of a (bot-heavy) massive Twitter account …
Was about to chase down some truth in the vigil of chasing that lie halfway around the world when this one crossed my tweet stream:
Gas prices are the lowest in the U.S. in over ten years! I would like to see them go even lower.
@realDonaldTrump Actually, gas prices were lower for 6 months 2008-9, 6 months in 2015, and 11 months in 2016 https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPM0U_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=M … pic.twitter.com/F1tZuU1nfz
Thank you, Richard Hine, for saving me the time to track down the data.
Some points from the Energy Information Administration data about gas prices across the nation.
- Feb 2016: $1.78 per gallon
- Dec 2008: $1.72 per gallon
- June 2017: $2.37 per gallon
Hmm … Donald tweets … and Donald tweets falsehoods — easily refuted falsehoods. What a surprise …
Sadly, we can expect the #MAGA minions to fall in line and cheer this distortion. (Reading comments to Trump’s thread is painful …) I’m waiting with baited breath for the Fox News segments showing how Trump has delivered the lowest gas prices since the Fall of Rome …
My aside thought recalls the (apocryphal) story about George HW Bush and the grocery store scanner.
Anyone want to bet the last time Donald Trump pumped his own gas?
Again our President has no clue what it is he is talking about. I am certain he has never pumped gas.
— Sherrie Kaw (@89wunderlust) July 5, 2017
As an aside, a few weeks ago I saw a story that I was tempted to write about Trump Blamed For Slumping Gasoline Demand As Illegal Immigrants Stay Home. The hypothesis in short: due to fears about being seized and deported, many undocumented immigrants (and even ones with papers) have dramatically reduced their driving — perhaps enough to have depressed the gasoline markets. Honestly, this seems a bit of a stretch in terms of total miles driven in the nation but this is, if you go to the link, the only year in the past 13 in which gasoline prices have declined between March and June (rather than increase in double-digit percentage as the summer peak demand approaches).