Looking back at it? I think their only hope would have been going "ohhhh shit inflation is in Carter territory" instead of "fuck yeah our inflation is lower than Germany's" and then come up with a way to bring prices down. I don't think they had a prayer of that. The Biden administration was manipulating the strategic petroleum reserve like crazy and that sorta worked but without price controls there was nothing they could have done. Carter ate shit because Nixon killed Bretton Woods and inflation went bugshit. Volcker dealt with it by jacking the shit out of interest rates which was the objectively right thing to do but also heinously unpopular and what we got was a smarmy, fatuous oaf most famous for shilling GE, starring opposite a chimp and ratting out his friends to McCarthy. That wasn't much fun either, nostalgia be damned.