I’ve been trying to ignore Erick Erickson’s post today, but it’s title, Gaslighting America, just screams … projection. Why? Let’s take a look:
Repeatedly, the Biden Administration has claimed wages are going up. This too is gaslighting. Wages have barely increased and inflation has far outpaced wages. Therefore, the purchasing power of each dollar now buys less than what a dollar bought just six months ago. It amounts to a wage cut.
Or does it? What if prices go down? Look, there are several components to prices, from the cost of inputs, including labor costs, to the effects of competition, right up to sheer greed. So let’s take labor costs: they’re going up at the moment, and it’s anyone’s guess if they’re coming back down. If they don’t then prices will have one supporting factor.
But another factor are supply chains, and those are currently in a shambles. This shambles means supply prices, whether food or components or whathaveyou, is at a premium. This causes price rises, but as those shambles are resolved, and as demand settles down – remember Kevin Drum’s chart at right? – supply prices should settle downwards.
Wages are up. Those can be permanent. Prices may go up, but they also may go down. I consider Erickson’s claims specious, especially an unquoted remark of his using the adjective skyrocketed. No, I grew up in the Carter years, when prices really jumped. I’m am not prepared to consider our 5-6% annual inflation to be a SpaceX rocket.
The Biden Administration is also gaslighting us on fuel prices. The official line is that oil is a global market and there is little the President can do. Take out even last year during the pandemic when no one traveled. Two years ago, fuel prices were lower.
Progressives in the Biden Administration have willfully worked to make fuel costs higher. Until it hit their polling, Democrats openly said fuel prices needed to be higher to reduce demand for fossil fuels. The Biden Administration cancelled pipeline plans, canceled exploration leases on federal land, and drove up regulatory costs for petroleum producers. These policies have contributed to the fuel scarcity. When Trump was President, the United States was a net exporter of energy. Now we are left begging OPEC to produce more.
And. So. What? Pipelines and oil fields are not built in a day or a year. To make this specious claim is to play with emotions, not deduce from facts. And maybe, just maybe, you want those “regulatory costs” a little higher. Hiding behind that bland little phrase are two facts: the quasi-religious Republican tenet that Regulation is bad, and the fact that regulation, properly implemented, safeguards life, both existentially and quality-wise.
So prices are a little higher. Snopes, of all sources, has an interesting quote I found in regards to the claim Did Biden Set US ‘Back 50 Years’ on Energy Independence Progress? made by Turning Point:
The Turning Point meme disregards entirely the existence of the year 2020. The omission of 2020 masks not only a decline in U.S. fossil fuel production that occurred, it also conceals a larger truth about U.S. presidents and the global energy market: Neither they nor their policies have a significant effect on the market compared to other global factors.
Remember how the price of oil jumped around prior to the pandemic? It was generally blamed on investors, but it’s also caused by transit costs, threats of war costs, and other factors. While I tend to think that Presidents have more influence than is suggested by Snopes, the club they wield isn’t known for its nuance, and must be handled with care.
So if Snopes suggests Trump had little to do with energy production, while Erickson wants to nastily imply that he did, without actually quite saying it, what is to be made of this?
Crude oil production did grow significantly during Obama’s presidency — up 77 percent — but experts, including the federal government’s Energy Information Administration, have said the growth is largely due to technological advances, such as fracking and horizontal drilling. [FactCheck.org]
I immediately noticed Erickson omitted this important fact when lamenting the price of oil, as if Trump alone were responsible – but, if Trump claims accolades, then on the same basis so does Obama. (Who did try.)
And if one doesn’t get any, neither does the other. Erickson’s claim and omission are painfully hypocritical.
Which is all quite sad because I think there’s something to consider here:
At this point, Democrats seem almost willfully trying to lose the 2022 midterm elections. After the Virginia elections, Democrats doubled down accusing voters of racism. Voters in Virginia elected the first black Lt. Governor for the state and first Hispanic Attorney General. But the talking heads in the press said it was just further proof of racism while still denying critical theory is a thing.
I don’t know if the racism claims occurred. Maybe they did. He provides no link. But I’m finding the entire school issue to be highly confusing. Some writers claim it doesn’t exist. Some claim it does. I don’t respect everyone, but some are worth the respecting and those stories are conflicting. The Democrats had better learn from the Virginia loss for 2022.
Or they will lose.
