I have a couple of otherwise-sane friends who keep talking to me about the price of gasoline as if I can do something to change it. I understand the need to sometimes vent about something that's bothering you. I've done it here and will do it again but with some, talking about gas prices is getting to be like bitching constantly about gravity. Isn't it awful that when I throw something into the air, it doesn't stay there? It keeps coming back down, damn it!
Kevin Drum said the following as he was writing about the G.O.P. debate last night…
[Moderator] Lester Holt wanted to know what everyone would do to get prices down, and he wanted no tepid mush. He wanted to know what they'd do on DAY ONE, dammit. The answer for all of them was: gasoline. They would do…….something…….to get the price of gasoline down, which would put money in everyone's pockets. None of them acknowledged the basic fact that oil prices are set globally, which means that none of their proposals would have any effect. Nor did any of them seem to realize that the real price of gasoline is down very nearly to its pre-pandemic average.
But of course they said that. The price of gas pisses off just about every American and unless you own part of an oil company, it feels like it would involve no sacrifice on your part to rectify the problem. So it's a very safe answer. Some of the other problems might cost someone something to solve.
I only watched a little of the debate but what I saw reaffirmed my belief that a part of Trump's continuing popularity with his party — and maybe not a small part — is that they don't see anyone they can imagine as an alternative candidate. Some of those people don't look like they even have a 50-50 chance of winning a coin toss.
The only candidate up there I thought "won" the debate in any sense was Nikki Haley who seemed to be the only one who, in light of election results the night before, felt the party needs to change the way they talk about abortion. The fact that she was the only one there who could possibly ever have one did not go unnoticed…but I will get the Republican nomination for President before she will. And so will you.