In Front of Our Noses: Trying to Create Unreality
Gas prices.
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”-George Orwell.
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This is actually a perfect example of why I created this series, to bring to the fore concerning statements and behaviors by this administration that could too easily just become background noise or lost in the maelstrom that daily American politics as become.
There are really only two possibilities.
One, he really thinks gas is $1.98. If so, where’s the handwringing in the press about the president’s advanced age and cognitive decline? (Alternatively: are his advisors lying to him?)
Two, he is bullshitting as he alway is, caring not one white about reality, but content to spin his own in the hopes that enough of his supporters buy it.
While I understand the desire to go, “why not both?” I think the second option fits the long-term pattern of his life well enough that I overwhelmingly think it is the answer to the question.
For anyone who likes reality, here are the current average gas prices by state. The lowest is Mississippi at $2.705 a gallon.
I think I agree with #2. This sort of rhetoric just shuts down questions. He will stonewall on the counterfactual in an interview. He gets a thrill from it, even while one might understand his rhetoric as just hyperbole, akin to “I’ve told you a million times to put the seat up!”. “A million” is not an accurate number. It’s not meant to be taken as an accurate number. It is meant to convey intensity of feeling.
So, he knows it isn’t the right number, but he enjoys the benefit of the ambiguity. In this case, I don’t think many MAGA would believe that to be a real number. Most people know what they pay for gas.
However, it is also the case that he’s taking credit for something that happened during Biden. I saw the gas prices spike, and then fall back to levels I hadn’t seen in 10 years. All during Biden.
But of course, that’s a stealth payload of that message.
I actually think there is a number 3, though it’s a variation on number 1. Someone showed him a picture from somewhere where gas actually was around $1.98 a short while ago and he’s puffing it into a much bigger, more broadly applicable boast. It is the same muscle he flexes when he claims he won by a landslide or that his first term was the bestest ever. Still deranged, but with a tiny sliver of reality in there for his marks.
BTW we will NEVER get serious reporting on Trump’s obvious cognitive decline. The “journalists let it pass with Biden, so they’re being unfair to Trump” BS counterattack would be too easily deployed by Trump’s backers.
The MAGAs will always tell you that what Trump says is never meant to be taken literally.
I think the phenomenon is pretty easy to deal with. As I commented about a college president I worked for years ago, when she says “the weather’s nice,” I look out the window. Basically, nothing unconfirmed gets accepted until verified.
But what of all the people who can’t/won’t do that? I can’t help them; I can only be responsible for my actions.
To me, it’s the same old: He’s flooding the zone with mis-or-dis-information.
He’s letting the Press chase that one down when they could be asking questions about virtually anything alse – tariffs, joining the war in Iran, waging war on blue states – of far greater importance.
@Scott F.: “I actually think there is a number 3, though it’s a variation on number 1. Someone showed him a picture from somewhere where gas actually was around $1.98 a short while ago and he’s puffing it into a much bigger, more broadly applicable boast.”
This sounds about right. But I would say the “puffing it into” part is the BS–his lifelong specialty. So I look at it as both. To put it another way, it’s a combination of BS, willful ignorance, and simple ignorance, in proportions that seem to either support his desired conclusion or just sound good to him at the time.
The disinformation gets normalized in his circles as it is echoed by toadies and his minions. Speaking of gas prices, Treasury Sec Bessent said last month on NBC’s Meet the Press, “The singular most important thing is the gasoline price. Gasoline prices have collapsed under president trump.”
That was false. At that time, US regular gas prices were up slightly since Jan 20th. The St. Louis Fed regular gas price chart shows no downward trend in 2025. Trump also inherited low gas prices in his first administration, and prices did not go down until demand cratered with the 2020 pandemic, causing oversupply and briefly negative crude oil market prices.
@Eusebio:
I like this triumvirate formulation. I’ve always thought Trump’s psychopathy was too malicious to chalk up to him being merely a simpleton. It’s a mix of evil and stupidity that he’s learned to opportunistically rebalance in order to best serve himself in every scenario.
Bessent and the others enablers have seen that Trump rarely pays a price for the BS, so they’ve adopted his play – their mix is likely less simple ignorance and more willful ignorance, but the BS is always there.
@Eusebio:
I think at this point, except for a tiny number of GOPs with principles and a larger number of naifs, GOPs realize unreality is their only hope of retaining office. They know they’re lying and they take pride in their ability to do so.
I think a lot of journalists have gently internalized a knowledge of what side their bread is buttered on. Whether it is just a matter of mainstream news companies promoting those that mirror the owners views, or peer pressure, or trading favorable coverage for access… there’s a clear pattern in the outcomes.
And then take a few steps to the left, off the mainstream news and there are desperate reporters screaming all of this into the void.
The most recent act of actual journalism in an interview was from Tucker Carlson of all people interviewing Ted Cruz. In one interview he shows that he was totally capable of being a capable and effective journalist, but that he’s chosen not to for basically his entire career.
I think a lot of journalists have made similar decisions to not be journalists.
@Gustopher: IIRC it was J. K. Galbraith who observed that shilling for the wealthy paid a lot better than crusading for the truth. GOPs like to complain about the liberal bias of media reporters. Media OWNERS are wealthy.
The depressing aspect is that a lie like this will immediately be “confirmed” by MAGA cultists on social media. Challenge the $1.98 lie on a discussion board, for example, and several anonymous commenters will reply that in their (unnamed) neighborhood, gas stations are indeed charging that or less. Presumably everyone reading is supposed to think the gas stations where they live must be ripping them off; either that or they live in California, which MAGA cultists no longer regard as part of the US.
My favorite was a comment at the New York Post recently, by somebody who claimed they systematically kept a record of the prices of all the grocery items they bought each week. And since Trump was elected, every price had come down from 15 to 30%. Call these comments dishonest or deluded, and you’ll cop a torrent of personal insults.