Cubone posted:

it was hypothesized early on that gas prices in the u.s. would rise due to economic sanctions placed on russia in response to their invasion of ukraine, and that americans at large would be unlikely to tolerate this, considering the economy was already in a pretty precarious position and also considering our response to the pandemic

russia's actions proved to be significantly more unpopular than anticipated, and a counter-narrative soon emerged that punishing russia with economic sanctions was a preferable alternative to the u.s. engaging the russian military directly (the nation is in many ways still reeling from the failed wars in iraq and afghanistan, and the threat of nuclear war is a real possibility) and keeping a stiff upper lip about making small sacrifices was a way for the average american to do their part
what you're noticing is probably part of the efforts to spread that counter-narrative, op