Ordinarily, when Donald Trump talks about high gas prices, the president tells the public that the struggling war with Iran is worth the higher consumer costs, which he expects to fall once the conflict eventually comes to an end.

But every once in a while, the Republican tries a different tack. Instead of arguing that higher prices are an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of his avoidable war in the Middle East, Trump occasionally tries to convince Americans that higher gas prices are a good thing.

Just two weeks after launching the war, the president used his social media platform to argue, “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”

That line proved wildly unpersuasive and was quickly dropped from the White House’s talking points — which made it all the more surprising to see Trump recycle it seven months later during a Wednesday afternoon rally in Arizona.

“Our country is making more money than it’s ever made because of the fact that oil is so high,” he said. “Because of the price of oil, Texas and Oklahoma and North Dakota and all these places, we’re making a fortune.”

In other words, with 20 days remaining before the midterm elections, and with the early-voting window opening in states across the country, the Republican wants Americans consumers to be glad they’re paying more at the pump.

As a substantive matter, the problem with Trump’s claim that “we’re making a fortune” is that the word “we” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It’s true that the United States is producing a lot of oil, and it’s also true that higher prices help generate oil industry profits. But since the number of Americans who benefit from oil industry profits is very small, few will likely celebrate the ongoing hit to their wallets.

But as a political matter, what strategic genius came up with this idea? How many voters can reasonably expect to see it as a positive that the average price of gas is $4.33 a gallon, up from $3.06 a year ago at this time?

The post On gas prices, Trump recycles a weird argument to pretend bad news is good news appeared first on MS NOW.

Author: Source Author

From MS Now.