China Accidentally Made Our Gas Much Cheaper

You’d be forgiven, at this point, for believing in what the MSNBC host Chris Hayes calls the “gas prices monocausal theory” of American politics. Every major political dynamic, every twist and turn in approval polling and legislative possibility, seems driven by whether gas prices are going up or down.

Consider Joe Biden’s presidency. When Biden took office, he was broadly popular, helping the narrow Democratic majority in Congress pass a COVID-19 relief bill and send out $1,400 checks. And in Biden’s honeymoon phase, gas prices were comfortably below $3 a gallon, until May 2021.

You know what happened next: The United States pulled out from Afghanistan as gas prices were already climbing, and Biden’s popularity tanked. When Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, oil prices