Gas prices are highly correlated with political approval ratings. To a degree that is moreso than food or housing, which constitute greater proportion of household spending than gas.
Why is this? Perhaps it is because most of the time that an American leaves their house, they’ll be visually bombarbed with at least one giant neon sign showing the price of gasoline. It’s also while they’re driving and they have nothing better to think about. A quick Google shows that there is no national regulation requiring gas stations to display these giant signs, and only a few states require them. Gas stations have these signs mostly to draw in customers.
This to me is a perfect example of Moloch. If no gas station had a sign, it probably wouldn’t lower the total amount of gas purchased, and nobody would be worse off. But that’s not something the federal government can or should regulate. What would be the cutoff for acceptable gas price signage? Now, we are beholden to the price of gas as a banal topic for small talk and a capricious political issue.