Politicians are gaslighting us all on gas prices, and it needs to stop | Opinion
I drive a very fuel-efficient car, but lately I’m really ticked off about gas prices.
Mostly, I’m angry at the outright and outrageous lies that President Donald Trump and his Kansas congressional acolytes keep pushing about where the prices were when Trump got back to the White House and where they are today.
Spoiler alert: Trump and the Republicans have done virtually nothing to bring down prices at the pump.
But they keep saying they are.
In recent weeks, Trump has claimed that gas is $1.98 a gallon (a lie) and $1.88 a gallon (a 10 cent bigger lie).
But the praise rolls in from his MAGA chorus — let the choir sing.
“President Trump said we’re going to ‘drill, baby, drill,’ one of my favorite expressions from his campaign, ‘drill, baby drill,’ and indeed, America, once again, is drilling, and we’ve seen gasoline prices drop across America,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, in a CSPAN speech two weeks ago lavishing praise on Trump for his first 100 days back in office.
About the same time, Rep. Tracey Mann of the Kansas Big 1st District was doing the same thing.
“Americans are feeling far less pain at the pump because we have leadership in our nation’s capital that prioritizes an all of the above energy strategy instead of Green New Deal policies that pick winners and losers,” Mann said.
Actually, they did pick winners and losers.
Oil companies win and you lose every time you put the nozzle in your gas tank. And “drill, baby drill,” is as descriptive of what’s happening to us as it is to anything that’s happening underground.
While crude oil has dropped dramatically since Trump took office — from about $76 a barrel on his first day back to about $61.50 at present — that hasn’t been reflected at the pumps in Kansas.
We can check this fairly easily, because the AAA Auto Club surveys gas prices daily in every county in Kansas and we can access the historical record through the magic of the “Wayback Machine” that keeps copies of AAA’s daily pages at webarchive.org.
Let’s take a look at Wichita first (and wouldn’t that make a great City Council campaign slogan?).
On Nov. 5, Election Day 2024, the average price of a gallon of regular in Sedgwick County was $2.814. On Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, it was $2.867. And on Tuesday, it was $2.875.
For U.S. senators, representatives, and anyone else who has problems with basic math, that’s a price increase, not a decrease.
And lest you think we may be unique, let’s look at the prices in Johnson County: $2.677 on Nov. 5, $2.870 on Jan. 20 and $2.834 Tuesday.
Wyandotte County? Nov. 5, $2.732; Jan. 20, $2.856 and Tuesday, $2.814.
The state average was $2.765 on Nov. 5; $2.807 on Jan. 20 and $2.831 on Tuesday.
The pattern is clear, about a 6 to 15 cent increase per gallon from Election Day to now.
Not a huge swing, by any stretch of the imagination. But it has gone up, so the Republican mantra of “promises made, promises kept” is ringing a little hollow right now.
We’ve learned to expect that anything Trump says about the life of the average person will have only the most distant relationship to reality. He’s never been one.
And I don’t expect him to know anything about life on the ground in Kansas.
But he should know the trend across the nation is gas prices up: $3.102 on Election Day, $3.125 on Inauguration Day, and $3.175 today.
Or maybe Trump’s not lying and is just better at shopping for gas than anyone else. Maybe he’s got some art of the insider deal going on for $1.88 gas for his cars with the oil-rich emir of Qatar, who just gifted him gold-trimmed luxury 747 he’s always craved.
Marshall and Mann ought to know better, because presumably they have to pull into a Kansas gas station every once in a while, even if an aide or driver has to do the actual pumping.
So what’s their excuse for claiming gas prices are down when just about everyone in Kansas knows they’re not?
Maybe they think we’re too stupid to notice or too partisan to care.
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 6:04 AM.
