Mr. President, Do You Know the Price of a Gallon of Gas?

Regular Gas is $4.53 per gallon on average. Americans are paying 40% to 44% more at the pump than they did at the same time last year.

In season 5 episode 4 of The West Wing, the President asks his staff what the price of a gallon of milk is. It is a small detail, but it exposes something significant. He is concerned that the White House may be out of touch with the basic concerns of ordinary Americans, whom they have been tasked to serve.

We learn, however, that one member of the president’s staff knows the price quite well. Charlie Young, the president’s personal assistant, knows the price immediately. He tells him $2.69, $2.89 in Georgetown, and $2.54 with a coupon from the paper. He knows it because he has to know it. His mother died in the line of duty as a police officer, and he was left to help raise his younger sister. He knows what a gallon of milk costs because he lives close enough to need to know. He even knows the price with a coupon. The president is stunned by Charlie’s answer and orders everyone in the White House to be aware of the price of a gallon of milk.

The brief scene in a political drama reveals an essential question about leadership. Do leaders know the burdens of the people they are called to serve? Or have they become so insulated by wealth, power, and status that the struggles of ordinary people barely register? That question feels especially urgent right now.

When President Trump recently said he does not think about the financial situation of average Americans while discussing Iran, it reveals more than a policy position. It reveals a troubling distance between the leader and the led. At a time when many Americans are feeling the strain of rising costs, high gas prices, grocery bills, debt, and instability, such a statement lands with a certain coldness.

It makes me wonder. Does the president know the price of a gallon of gas?

Not in the abstract. Not as a talking point. Not as a number, some aide could hand him before a press conference. But does he know it the way a single mother knows it when she has to choose between filling the tank and buying groceries? Does he know it the way a working-class father knows it when every commute cuts deeper into the family budget?

Wealthy and powerful people can easily become detached from ordinary problems. They may speak about inflation, war, wages, and gas prices, but these things do not press on them the way they press on the people they govern. Their lives are often protected from the consequences of their own decisions.

This has always been one of the great dangers of war. The people who declare wars rarely fight them. The people who escalate conflicts rarely bury their sons. The people who speak in grand terms about strength, patriotism, or national interest often do not feel the weight of the bodies, the bills, or the broken homes left behind. When leaders lose touch with the struggles of the people, they lose the ability to lead them well.

In ministry, we often say that shepherds must smell like sheep. A pastor cannot faithfully shepherd people he does not know. If he is ignorant of their fears, wounds, temptations, griefs, and burdens, how will he apply the gospel to their lives? How will he comfort the afflicted, confront the proud, strengthen the weak, or guide the wandering?

The same principle applies to leadership everywhere. A leader who does not understand the suffering of his people will eventually begin to use them.

This is part of what makes Putin’s war in Ukraine so horrific. With staggering Russian casualties since 2022, he continues to send men into war. Citizens become pawns in the service of one man’s ambition. Their lives are spent for his vision of glory.

That is the dark logic of corrupt leadership. People become tools.

George Orwell captures this brilliantly in Animal Farm. At first, the animals are enslaved by man. By the end, they are enslaved by the pigs. The faces have changed, but the system has not. The pigs and the men become almost impossible to distinguish.

That is what happens when leaders forget the people. Citizens become mules for the master’s agenda. Church members become cogs in a pastor’s machine. Employees become instruments of a CEO’s ambition. Soldiers become expendable. Families become statistics. The people exist for the leader, rather than the leader existing to serve the people.

But Jesus shows us a better way. Jesus knew the anguish of the people. He saw the hungry. He touched the unclean. He welcomed the overlooked. He wept with the grieving. He had compassion on the crowds because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

He did not use people to build his platform. He humbled himself and served them. He washed the feet of his disciples. He bore the burdens of sinners. He submitted himself to death on a cross for the redemption of his people.

The greatest leader who ever lived was not aloof from suffering. He entered into it. That is the mark of true leadership.

Leaders must know the burdens of their people. They must pay attention to their fears. They must understand the cost of milk, the price of gas, the weight of medical bills, the ache of grief, the strain of war, and the exhaustion of ordinary life.

A good leader does not stand above the people in detached self-interest. A good leader sees them, serves them, and knows the price of a gallon of gas.