MAY 5, 2026 – Sooner or later it was bound to happen: the Teflon would suffer a big scratch. Heretofore . . .
The “Access Hollywood tape”? Ancient history.
The “perfect phone call”? No one remembers—or cares.
January 6? A Democratic plot.
DOGE butchery without accounting? Old news, forgotten pain.
ICE? Same.
Assaults on the rule of law? Ho-hum.
Use of the DOJ as a vehicle for political retribution, where process is punishment? Not my problem.
“Drill, baby drill” and putting a stake through environmental protections? Out of sight and no longer within earshot, out of mind.
Grift and corruption on an epic scale? Another yawner.
Trashing our allies? Who cares—they’re free-loaders.
Falling asleep in cabinet meetings? Cut ’im slack—all work meetings are boring.
Epstein files? Schmepstein hoax.
War against Iran? Just another forever war—every president has one . . . or two.
Character? It has nothing to do with the price of beans.
Speaking of price . . . how ’bout the price of gas? NOW you’re talkin’ ’bout what matters! Big-time scratch across the Teflon.
Teflon Trump’s historically low approval ratings—and the Democrats’ correspondingly elevated prospects for seizing control of Congress next year—aren’t a result of the president’s abject failure of leadership and utter disregard for the welfare and security of all Americans. The plunge in approval is nothing more than a reaction to the price of Brent crude. And that, not the Epstein scandal, not any of the other countless “railroad” ties across the tracks of Trump’s career, is the first game-changing scratch in the man’s coat of Teflon.
If that scratch alone now reveals Trump’s political vulnerability, it’s a sad commentary on the state of our civic, political, economic, and historical literacy—and by extension, the health of our democracy. Many people, I among them, would argue that the price of gasoline is, in fact, ultimately linked to Trump’s disqualifying character, which encompasses the full panoply of his staggering intellectual, psychological, and emotional deficiencies—shortcomings that are behind all the wreckage for which he is responsible but for which to date he’s avoided accountability. His lack of fitness for his job is what led us into the briar patch vis-à-vis Iran. And that blind step, of course, is what caused the price of gas to spike and will keep it high straight through November even under the best of circumstances. We disapprove, but we are a shallow and fickle bunch when it comes to political governance: While lamp oil is cheap, Nero can be and do as he pleases even when the place is in flames by his hand. If lamp oil is expensive, Nero’s party could be in for rough treatment in the next round of elections.
At every time and place in Trump’s past, the record was clear: he had no business being president of the United States, or for that matter, lording over much of anything. As far back as election night 2024, we could see that with this guy at the helm, things would not end well for the country. The high price of gas is but the tip of the iceberg that could well tear an irreparable gash across the hull of our democracy—and below the waterline. The cost of living generally is a major challenge for all too many people in the U.S., but the price of gas isn’t the cause of our democracy’s ill-health. Nor should it alone be the gauge by which we approve or disapprove of the president.
The second way in which our obsession with the price of gas reflects poorly on us is that nowhere in the coverage of the issue—and of closure of the Strait of Hormuz—do we hear or see mention of the elephant in the room: anthropogenic climate change. We cheer when news of progress toward peace appears and the price at the pump drops; we express the opposite reaction when such progress fades and the price jumps. We cheer because we can drive more for less. We moan when forced financially to conserve. In the larger context of climate change, we should be reacting in the exact opposite fashion. But we’ve reverted to a time when cheap fossil fuel was more important than the environmental future of the planet.
If the price of gas is now the leading driver of Trump’s approval rating, once the immediate crisis is over (i.e. once a face-saving return trail is blazed to the status quo ante), how long will it take for us to grapple with the much larger long-term crisis affecting life on planet earth?
Gazing into the near term as well as the long haul, will we meet the condition that Benjamin Franklin laid upon his description of the governmental form adopted by the members of the Continental Congress in 1787? As he left Independence Hall on the last day of the convention, one Elizabeth Willing Powell asked Franklin “what kind of government” the country now had. “A republic,” he answered famously, “. . . if you can keep it.” He directed his reply to her, but as it turns out, it was a timeless challenge to future generations, perhaps never more so than Americans of our day. Of one thing I’m confident: Dr. Franklin[1] would surely agree that “keeping the republic” requires far more than managing the price of gasoline.
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
[1] A result of being awarded honorary doctorates, one from the University of St. Andrews in 1759 and the other from Oxford University in 1762.
1 Comment
Brilliantly Said!