Gas Prices are Dropping Fast. I Have Questions.

Conservatives and leftists alike have quickly embraced the notion that America’s perception of President Donald Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, and of its being a never-ending war, would keep the price of gas and diesel high. This, they believed, is the reason for inflation in the full range of goods and services. On its surface, the logic is sound and true.

But were these specific economic pressures enough to cause the level of political devastation to Republicans we just saw?

The experts are telling us that Republicans not named Donald Trump, at the federal, state, and even local levels, lost in the November midterms because voters were mad at Trump. That’s why, we are told, the Senate race in the Republican stronghold of Mississippi is still too close to call.

We are told that millions of Republicans, almost all in unison, have opted to vote for Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates over the same Republicans they’ve been voting for several decades.

Now let’s dig below the surface. Are temporarily high energy and consumer prices alone enough to justify the sea change in voter sentiment that happened overnight? More to the point, how was public opinion engineered so effectively to convince so many Americans that a 19-year-old kid should be given the responsibilities of Maricopa County clerk of Superior Court?

What has to happen for that to happen?

Here are some of the explanations I’ve heard so far: “Donald Trump”; bad candidates; terrible messaging on the Iran war; “Donald Trump”; terrible messaging in general; lousy campaign strategy; and more.

While all of that may be true, how can that really explain the near uniformity of the results?

Are gas prices worse than they have ever been in American history? Don’t get me wrong. I have been muttering to myself the past few months every time I fill up my tank. I didn’t think those prices were sustainable. But as a Republican, that only made me want Trump to finish the war, not surrender to the Iranians, as the Democrats-elect want him to do.

To be clear, my focus here is not to debate the impact of inflation on Americans. It’s real and it’s bad. I know this. I’m living it and not liking it, too. But what I would like to know is how all of this was weaponized and leveraged to get Republican voters to betray their own interests to vote for the people who want to destroy their way of life.

If you’re reading this and yelling at me, “But you don’t understand. These are the highest gas prices and inflationary conditions we’ve ever seen,” I have some comparisons for you. Let’s look at the price of a barrel of oil under the past four presidents.

Under George W. Bush, oil was at or above $100 per barrel for 146 days across his two terms in office. Under Barack Obama, oil was at or above $100 per barrel for 308 days. In Trump’s first term, oil peaked at $77 per barrel and never came close to $100. Under Joe Biden’s one term, oil was at or above $100 per barrel for 83 days. In Trump’s second term, oil reached $100 per barrel for 24-35 days.

The major takeaway from these numbers is pretty obvious. What we’ve experienced so far in 2026 is nothing new. This has happened before, and even worse. Still, in those previous times, socialists and jihadis didn’t become the most popular candidates overnight as a result.

On the issue of candidate quality, we’re told that Republicans were the worst. If we’re being honest, the Democrats far exceeded the Republicans on just how low they could set the bar for their candidates.

Senator-elect Troy Jackson (D-Maine) had two children with his second cousin, and he defeated longtime senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), who until five minutes ago was beloved. How’s that “candidate quality” thing taking shape there?

And after all that we’ve documented about these folks, do we really need to talk about candidate quality when looking at Senator-elect James Talarico (D-Texas) or Senator-elect Peggy Flanagan (D-Minn.)?

But it gets worse. Police arrested Missouri State Rep. Anthony Ealy (D) on an assault charge within hours of his reelection.

BREAKING: Missouri State Rep. Anthony Ealy (D) ARRESTED on assauIt charge and disturbing the peace just hours after being reelected He allegedly entered someone’s house and threatened to kiII them two nights in a row. https://t.co/TQ4YtEy8UJ

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 5, 2026

North Carolina voters elected Democrat LaKesha Womack to Congress. But before she packs her bags for Washington, D.C., she has to face a felony car theft charge.

Dem candidate gets elected to the House in surprise win - and has a court appearance for car theft next week https://t.co/P1pKwJzdIB https://t.co/JtsoxtH4P7

— New York Post (@nypost) November 6, 2026

Then there is Los Angeles Mayor-elect Nithya Raman. After all of the time she spent campaigning, you’d think she might have had an answer when a reporter asked her what she plans to do on the first day on the job. She had nothing.

😳 LA Mayor-elect @nithyavraman was asked a softball question after her election was sealed: “What will you do in the first 24 hours and 100 days?” She blanked. Couldn’t remember. Told people to look at the website saying she’s been focused on “congratulatory calls”. Like when she couldn’t remember the DEBATE she JUST finished, saying she was in a “fugue state.” Is she ok? https://t.co/AXWKrI0ADq

— Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD (@houmanhemmati) November 6, 2026

Republicans lost on candidate quality? Give me a break.

All of these results would be more credible to me if they were more sporadic and less uniform. They’d be more credible to me if at least more of our good candidates outside of the state of Florida won.

The Republicans did run some very good candidates with effective messages, and they effectively contrasted themselves with their bizarro Democrat opponents, and yet their results were similar to other Republican candidates who shot themselves in the foot. I’m looking at you, Vivek Ramaswamy.

While so much of this just doesn’t make sense, we can’t get into a granular analysis of all of it right here and right now. I’m not going to land on a conspiracy theory, either. We don’t even have enough good data and information to consider any of that. But I think what we can do here is put the “gas prices” issue into better perspective.

Gas prices are dropping fast, and we’re told that the reason for that is renewed optimism that the Iran war may be resolved now that the Democrats will have majorities in the House and Senate. Nothing physical has even happened yet, mind you. The oil supplies today are the same as they were the day before the election, but “optimism” is driving the prices down.

Gas in my area a week ago was $4.72 per gallon. Today I paid $4.44 per gallon. Am I supposed to be optimistic now that socialists are about to engage in an unfriendly takeover of the land that I love?

Or should I listen to the cynic in me? What if the people who set those gas prices had lowered them like this two weeks ago? Would that have changed the outcome of the election? Better yet, did keeping them high influence the outcome of the election? Since we’re being forced to believe that gas pricing is just a speculative exercise, couldn’t we have been optimistic two weeks ago that Trump was winning the war?

The more I think about the election returns coming out of the midterms, the more questions I have, and I can’t placate myself with the same pat conclusions that others are floating right now. Every explanation I see only raises more questions in my mind. I know I’m not alone, because I’m seeing more and more conservatives start to come out of the state of shock they’ve been in since Election Night, and they have the same questions.

The last thing the Trump administration needs right now is distractions from the urgent business at hand. Trump has a lot to get done before the socialist jihadis get sworn into office in January. But these 2026 results still need far better analysis than what we’ve seen so far. What I can say is, the one explanation I’m not buying at this point is the “gas prices” excuse. I know it wasn’t that simple.

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