The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has just produced and tweeted the worst chart of 2021.

It is a line graph of gas prices with three data points covering a two-week time span. The absurd dishonesty comes when you look at the y-axis. Each horizontal line represents half of a cent.

The gas price dropped from $3.40 two weeks ago to $3.395, half a cent per gallon, last week. Then prices entered free fall, plummeting to ... $3.38. Overall, that’s two pennies less per gallon over two weeks. At this rate of 2 cents every two weeks, we’re only five months out from the $3.19 cents drivers were paying back on Oct. 1.

Gas prices have nearly doubled over the past 18 months, and Biden's allies are holding a parade for a less-than-1% drop over two weeks. Thanks, Joe Biden!

Here’s what a longer-term gas price chart looks like.

fredgraph.png
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GASREGW

There are all sorts of other problems with the Democrats' chart besides the y-axis that covers a grand total of 4 cents for a commodity that has moved more than 200 cents in the past year. What is up with that curved arrow in the upper right? It points kind of at nothing. Why do all of the prices go to three decimal points except for $3.40, which goes only to two decimal points? And I love how the word “DATE” appears on the bottom, while one of the three dates covered here, Nov. 15, is missing from the x-axis altogether.

So, how did this horrible chart happen? It seems someone at the DCCC took seriously a joke made by liberal blogger Matt Yglesias.

Washington Examiner political reporter Emily Brooks pointed out that Ron Klain, White House chief of staff (presumably not understanding the tweet was a joke), liked the tweet before the DCCC put it out sincerely.

UPDATE: This post was updated after Brooks pointed out the Yglesias tweet. I didn't see it originally because Yglesias blocks me.