Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Every year, right around Memorial Day, America performs one of its favorite rituals: loading the SUV like it’s a doomed Arctic expedition, stuffing coolers with enough processed meat to trigger three cardiologists simultaneously, and hitting the highway in search of “freedom.” Freedom, apparently, now costs $5 a gallon again while half the country pretends not to notice because the wrong guy isn’t in the White House anymore.

It’s remarkable how quickly political outrage evaporates when party loyalty enters the room. Just a couple years ago, Republicans acted as though slightly elevated gas prices under former President Joe Biden were evidence of societal collapse. Every television station carried dramatic footage of gas station signs like they were hurricane warnings. Politicians clutched fuel pumps the way medieval priests clutched crosses during exorcisms. Conservatives screamed that Americans were being financially tortured every time they filled up a Ford F-350 large enough to annex a neighboring state.

The price of unleaded was apparently the defining moral issue of Western civilization.

Now? Silence so complete you could hear a gasoline droplet hit pavement.

Gas prices climb again heading into the summer holiday season, families are calculating whether they can afford a road trip that doesn’t require a second mortgage, and suddenly the same people who once treated fuel costs like an impeachable offense have developed the emotional range of a brick wall. Apparently expensive gas is patriotic now. Or maybe it’s just “complicated.” Funny how economics always becomes complicated when your own side is holding the receipt.

And in strolls Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, looking less like the nation’s infrastructure chief and more like a man auditioning for a reboot of The Waltons sponsored by Buc-ee’s. While Americans stare at gas pumps like they’re reading ransom demands, Duffy is reportedly off filming a reality show involving his Brady-Bunch-on-growth-hormones-sized family caravaning around the country for wholesome Americana content.

Because that’s exactly what struggling Americans want to see this summer: a government official with a television pedigree piling ten children into a giant luxury vehicle and saying, “Pack up the family and hit the road!” as if gasoline is still ninety-nine cents and comes with a free set of steak knives.

It feels less like public service and more like a tourism commercial produced by people who have never had to check their bank account before buying groceries.

And honestly, the symbolism could not be more perfect for modern politics. Americans are told inflation is under control while paying more for everything from fuel to hot dogs, and meanwhile elected officials are essentially filming lifestyle content. We have reached the point where governance itself feels like a reality television crossover event. Congress argues in clips designed for TikTok. Presidential campaigns are branded like streaming series. Cabinet secretaries behave like influencers with federal pensions.

Somewhere along the line, politics stopped being about solving problems and became a content creation economy with flags in the background.

What makes the hypocrisy especially absurd is how selective the outrage machine has become. Under Biden, every nickel increase in gas prices was supposedly proof that America was descending into socialist ruin. Stickers saying “I did that!” appeared on pumps nationwide like a bumper-sticker version of economic theory. Cable news panels practically held candlelight vigils for suburban commuters.

But now, as families prepare for one of the busiest travel weekends of the year facing similarly painful costs, the outrage has vanished into thin air like cheap ethanol fumes.

No emergency hearings.
No screaming chyron graphics.
No politicians standing beside Chevron signs looking like Civil War widows.

Just cheerful reminders to enjoy summer travel while the average family silently calculates whether staying home and grilling discount hot dogs is now considered a luxury vacation package.

That’s the real frustration simmering beneath all of this: not merely the gas prices themselves, but the realization that so much of the political theater around them was exactly that — theater. The outrage was never about ordinary Americans struggling. It was about weaponizing inconvenience when politically useful and ignoring it when politically inconvenient.

And perhaps nothing captures modern America better than this image: families debating whether they can afford to drive to Grandma’s house while a reality-show-ready transportation secretary caravans across the country smiling for cameras, assuring everyone that the open road still represents freedom.

Freedom, of course, available now at participating gas stations for the low, low price of your entire paycheck.