The national average for gas prices fell to $2.881 per gallon on Friday, marking another week of decreases at the pumps.
Friday’s prices mark a five-cent decrease from a week ago, when the national average price for a gallon of regular gas was $2.93, and a month ago, when it was $3.09, according to AAA. Fuel costs are also lower than a year ago, during the waning days of the Biden administration, when a gallon of regular gas was $3.045. Also of importance is the fact that there are now 40 states in the U.S. with average gas prices under $3 per gallon. Of the 11 remaining areas with gas prices over $3 per gallon, which includes Washington, D.C., eight are states with Democratic governors.
However, Friday’s gas price data was just the latest in a string of positive economic news for Americans. Falling gas prices and a more affordable economy are generally good things for the country. However, the news of drops in gas prices, some grocery items, a booming stock market, and other affordability matters has caused Democrats to develop the latest contagion, fueled by Democratic hysteria, “affordability derangement syndrome.” It succeeds the initial Trump Derangement Syndrome and then the subsequent “White House ballroom construction derangement syndrome.”
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It’s been fueled by the economic recovery from the financial woes of the Biden administration. As my colleague Tiana Lowe Doescher reported, the economic news released over the last two days is a positive sign for the Trump administration. One would be hard-pressed to categorize it as an economic nirvana, but it is much better than the doom and gloom the Democrats have been trying to will into existence for the last ten months.
”In the first and extremely belated consumer price index report released since the Democratic Party’s record-setting shutdown of the federal government, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that headline CPI inflation rose 2.7% in the year ending in November, while the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of core CPI inflation, which excludes the volatile categories of food and energy, rose just 2.6%,” Doescher said. “Both measures came in dramatically below expectations, and core inflation, which averaged 3.3% when Trump took office, has sunk to its lowest level since the start of Biden’s presidency.”
“But 2.6% core inflation in November is a 27% reduction from the 3.3% core inflation Trump inherited in January,” Doescher reported. “And the fruition of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act may actually keep the progress going.”
“For fiscal 2025, the federal budget deficit fell by a small but statistically significant 4%, and with the annualized deficit-to-GDP ratio in the third quarter of the year finally falling below the recent and persistent plus-6% level,” she added. “For the first two months of fiscal 2026, the federal budget deficit has plunged another 19% from the year before.”
Furthermore, wages have increased 1.5% in Trump 2.0’s first year, which is obviously another positive sign for Americans. Combined with the previous reports of record holiday spending this year, the Democrats’ affordability derangement syndrome is proving to be the latest hoax they have tried to insert into American society. It’s the same kind of shenanigans they tried to pull in October regarding the government shutdown.
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While portraying a different message to the public, in reality, Democrats only pretend to care about affordability matters; they secretly want the economy to tank, so they could, as House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) would say, use it as “leverage,” especially in 2026 with the congressional midterm elections happening. For all their performative meandering, Democrats don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to economic affordability. They stood idly by during the Biden administration, which saw record-high consumer prices, gas prices, and inflation numbers.
There is still much progress to be made in terms of affordability and the economy. No one should or would pretend otherwise. But for Democrats to portray themselves as affordability harbingers and the arbiters of economic savants caring about the American people. They care about political power and will utilize any political messaging possible to obtain it. Their current “affordability derangement syndrome” doesn’t deserve any validity or attention.