Democrats on the left have been calling for higher gas prices for decades, arguing that climate change can’t be stopped as long as it costs less than $2 a gallon to drive across the country. However, the tide has turned now. Democrats are freaking out as gas prices rise again. A month from now, there will be an election, didn’t you hear?
Contrary to White House claims, gas prices are currently nearly $1.50 higher than they were when President Joe Biden entered office. AAA reports that petrol prices are $4.06 per gallon in politically fraught Wisconsin, $4.51 in Arizona, and $5.54 in Nevada.
His anti-fossil fuel initiatives and inflationary expenditures after COVID are to blame in part. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine bears some responsibility, but not all of it. Even before President Vladimir Putin went to war, gas costs had increased by $1.25 a gallon.
In any case, Biden is suddenly being compelled to engage in a great deal of what would typically be considered unusual conduct for a Democrat, notwithstanding his animosity of domestic oil and gas drilling.
The first step he took was in March, when he ordered the release of one million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for a period of six months. The reserve has been dwindling since 1984, and this release has now brought it to its lowest point. Considering how likely a conflict with Russia and an invasion of Taiwan by China have both become, that might not be the wisest move. To label it “the most politically selfish thing an American president has done in recent memory” was an accurate assessment from Ohio’s Republican Senate contender, J.D. Vance.
More importantly, it shows that Biden believes that the threat from global warming is largely exaggerated. It’s not dissimilar to when politicians buy expensive, lavish residences they then predict would be submerged in a few years.
But it gets even worse. Biden had to go grovelling to foreign despots in order to get more oil because he couldn’t risk alienating his environmentalist political base by supporting more domestic drilling (they’re already revolting over Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) very modest permitting improvements).
That was a hole that Biden himself had dug. During his 2020 election campaign, he did a lot of chest-thumping on the human rights record of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – at the time, he believed it would assist him politically. Because of this, Arab leaders initially wouldn’t even accept his calls. They humiliated him by making him apologise by visiting the region earlier this year, during which he awkwardly fist-bumped the crown prince, whom he had previously vilified as a murderer. As for Biden caring about human rights, forget it.
Therefore, in order to lower petrol costs before the election, Joe Biden essentially abandoned his declared beliefs on climate change and human rights.
And now the first portion of his due recompense is being paid to him. Oil producing nations, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, gathered this week and decided against increasing output as Biden had requested. Actually, they plan to cut output by 2 million barrels per day, which will cancel out the global oil supply’s response to Biden’s strategic petroleum release by a factor of two.
The embarrassing, disorganised, fatal retreat in Afghanistan that Biden oversaw last September was just the beginning of the countless ways in which Biden has shamed America since he took office. A fatal blow was dealt to American credibility when Putin saw that as a sign of American weakness and decided to attack Ukraine as a result. This rejection by OPEC’s once cooperating members may be the most direct insult Biden has ever received.
The once-credible claim that Biden is the world’s wrongest guy on foreign affairs still stands. Although it may be an exaggeration, there is no doubt that he has alienated America’s allies and demonstrated weakness against the country’s foes. Friends and adversaries alike are keeping an eye on the situation, hoping or dreading that the United States will soon pick a president who has backbone. In the meanwhile, voters can only remove Biden from power and lock him out of policymaking until 2024 by rejecting Democrats at the polls. Of course they deserve it if they’ve been protecting Biden.
