A few weeks ago, Donald Trump was bragging about low gas prices and how his administration got them lower. That may have been true, even though his numbers weren’t close to being accurate. Now, as a result of the Iraq war, or conflict, whatever it’s being called today, gas prices are skyrocketing. I’m not complaining about the gas prices themselves. Prices go up and down all the time depending on what is happening in the world. What I’m complaining about is the reaction to those gas prices, especially here in California. You can’t praise Trump for supposedly getting gas prices lower and then turn around and blame Gavin Newsom when gas prices go up. It doesn’t work that way. Gas prices don’t suddenly become a federal success story when they go down and then magically become a state problem when they go up. If you are going to give credit when things look good, then you also have to be honest about why things change when they don’t look so good. Yes, California has higher gas taxes. In fact, we have the highest gas tax in the country. That’s not new information. People in California have known that for years. But no new taxes were passed in the last month that would suddenly explain a spike in gas prices. The taxes didn’t suddenly change overnight, so blaming California taxes for a sudden jump in prices doesn’t make much sense. The reality is that gas prices are largely driven by global markets, conflicts, and supply issues. When the market has a sudden change that was a direct result of the actions of this president, then that is where the blame should rightfully be placed. When there is instability in the Middle East or other major oil-producing regions, prices tend to go up everywhere. These kinds of events have always had an impact on oil and gas prices, and they will continue to do so. The problem is that people want to give Trump credit for anything that sounds good in the moment, but when things don’t look good, they immediately blame someone else. It becomes a situation where good news gets credited to one person, but bad news gets blamed on someone entirely different. Trump himself does this, from blaming states or the previous administration, and his followers blindly follow his lead.
