Althouse: "The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation."

December 14, 2024

"The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation."

Tweets Trump.

65 comments:

Dave Begley said...: Talk about divisive!; 12/14/24, 11:09 AM
wild chicken said...: One way or the other, get rid of the change. They already screwed up my morning bike training by moving DST up to early March. Amazing how much difference that made.

We have short days in these latitudes no matter what you do.; 12/14/24, 11:11 AM
Two-eyed Jack said...: Way to use your political capital and legislative time!; 12/14/24, 11:13 AM
Levi Starks said...: It’s probably racist, but when an Indian was asked to comment on Daylight savings time he said “only a white man would think that he could make his blanket longer by cutting a foot of it off the top and sewing onto the bottom.; 12/14/24, 11:14 AM
gilbar said...: there is a Simple Solution! GMT, or Zulu time.
Get RID of DST! get RID of time zones!! Make the World ONE!!!

this Simple Solution..
a) uses existing technology, and would be EASY to implement
b) solves EVERY PROBLEM on Earth! (your use in outer space at high speed MAY be different)
c) would UNITED the world in opposition to this Simple Solution!!

If you can OUTRAGE 99.99999% of the people on earth.. You KNOW it is THE SOLUTION; 12/14/24, 11:14 AM
gilbar said...: Spring Ahead, Fall behind.. is NOT the same as: Winter Ahead Fall behind; 12/14/24, 11:15 AM
wild chicken said...: Yes of course. I actually know someone who thought DST made daylight longer. It sure makes mornings before work darker.; 12/14/24, 11:19 AM
gilbar said...: you'd THINK that the folk in England would be okay with this.. but NO!
24 hour time, with No British Summer Time – BST would Outrage them too!; 12/14/24, 11:19 AM
BudBrown said...: Wow. This is the first time ever tha,t after reading a Trump statement, I blurted out
"Trump is an idiot." Maybe Rubio has convinced him South Beach delusional time is the way to go.; 12/14/24, 11:33 AM
Dixcus said...: Is Hillary in jail yet?

Then we don't have time for this.; 12/14/24, 11:33 AM
Dixcus said...: This is how Trump is going to end.

With a whimper.; 12/14/24, 11:34 AM
NKP said...: Do it, Donald!; 12/14/24, 11:50 AM
mccullough said...: Sunrise at 8:15 in the upper Midwest is diabolical; 12/14/24, 11:56 AM
john mosby said...: Is daylight savings time even the law? Or was it the first-ever “nudge” policy: fedgov changes their clocks, so by trickle down, everyone else decides to do the same?

Nowadays, people can nudge back. One state - Arizona - already doesnt play. Others could do the same. All the work-from-home people dont have to worry about commuting in the dark, and usually get to set their own hours - they could go on de-facto no-DST.

Our connected society and commerce also makes it easier to nudge back. If everyone you talk to and do business with is in another time zone already, and you very rarely enter a store or office to do business, you’re making individualized decisions about when to do each thing already.

Dont wait for nanny gov to outlaw DST - just #ResistDST, starting now!

JSM; 12/14/24, 11:59 AM
Peachy said...: yay!

fallback and stay back.; 12/14/24, 12:00 PM
Peachy said...: Yes - do it!; 12/14/24, 12:01 PM
Sydney said...: Good. I hate daylight savings time.; 12/14/24, 12:07 PM
Jess said...: Without blackout curtains, and the threat of night bombings, it really doesn't have any purpose.; 12/14/24, 12:08 PM
Krumhorn said...: As long as kids don't have to stand at the bus stop in the darkness on the way to school, I'm good with getting rid of the other....whichever it is.

- Krumhorn; 12/14/24, 12:17 PM
Charlie said...: < Arizona has entered the chat >; 12/14/24, 12:18 PM
Arashi said...: Yes please just go back to standard time. The folks who want 'more daylight' can just get up earlier and leave the rest of us alone. It does not 'save' anything. Farmers do not use it and industries that are 24/7 get no benefit at all. You know it is total BS when one of the biggest supporters is the grilling and BBQ association of America. If you cannot grill in the dark, you should not be using fire alone anyway.; 12/14/24, 12:20 PM
Ambrose said...: I am annually amazed at the people who think DST is the cause of short days in December. My two cents - keep DST but change the crossover dates - we go on DST too early in Spring and stay on it too long in the Fall.; 12/14/24, 12:21 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I prefer the extra hour of sunlight in the evening but that is because I am retired and don't have to get out of bed earlier than 9 AM if I don't want to.; 12/14/24, 12:30 PM
BudBrown said...: I just don;t want to have wake up so dang early to catch the sunset.; 12/14/24, 12:39 PM
Birches said...: Permanent president of he does this; 12/14/24, 12:47 PM
RJ said...: There is a law. Each state has 2 choices: (1) standard time all year (AZ, HI), or (2) DST changeover. What you are not allowed to do (and what a lot of people want) is DST (summer time) all year round. That would take a new law.

Standard time all year works best the further south you are. Far northern states would have pre 5AM sunrise in summer, which is disconcerting.

My preference is for afternoon light, so I'm in the 'summer time all year' camp but since I live in Texas I could live with standard time.

Also note: the time zones are Very Wide, so people on the east edge of time zones have very different sunrise/sunset times than people on the west edge of the zone.; 12/14/24, 12:59 PM
Joe Bar said...: Yes, Zulu time is the answer. I used to have a Zulu clock in the office. Of course, we were processing military message traffic, and it was all Zulu time.; 12/14/24, 1:03 PM
Rocco said...: Women, children, and persons of color disproportionately suffer the most under Daylight Savings Time. It is a racist legacy of White Supremacy and settler colonialism and needs to go.

(* Tears down statue of William Willet *); 12/14/24, 1:04 PM
Paddy O said...: Along with his partnership with Elon Musk, this is part of Trump's nefarious plot to control time and space!; 12/14/24, 1:04 PM
Joe Bar said...: Yes, there is a federal law, however, states can petition to opt out, and no petition has ever been denied.; 12/14/24, 1:05 PM
Paddy O said...: One of the big reasons against a permanent change is in the past attempts to change it, people realized kids (1970s?) would be walking home from school in the dark. But do kids really walk home nearly as much anymore?; 12/14/24, 1:06 PM
Peachy said...: winter - days are short. deal.
Summer - days are long. deal.
Shifting the time by an hour - just messes it all up. Leave nature alone.
Plus - that extra hour gained forever! did I say yay? yay.; 12/14/24, 1:07 PM
Joe Bar said...: What is really needed is time zone reform. States should be able to determine their own time zones.; 12/14/24, 1:07 PM
john mosby said...: RJ - good point about the width of the time zones. The whole system is pretty artificial to begin with, so why not remove the most recent artificial accretion?

Also, now that we all have computers in our pockets, why not just go back to local solar time? All the map apps could be rejiggered to tell you the local time on arrival. The whole impetus for time zones was the newfangled railroads and keeping the timetables simplified. Now your phone can figure all that out.

JSM; 12/14/24, 1:08 PM
Jerry said...: 10 AM.

Always was a night owl, made to work an 8 to 5 schedule. Now a good night's sleep for me is 2 to 10. Lovely bride is still a lark, though - but we've been in separate bedrooms for a decade or so thanks to my snoring, so it's not a problem.; 12/14/24, 1:10 PM
Wilbur said...: Hell, I'd consider voting for a Leftist if zhe would pledge to abolish DST.

Consider. Briefly.

Fortunately my boy Trump gets it.; 12/14/24, 1:10 PM
Jerry said...: Judging by the elementary school near us, the parents won't let the kids walk anywhere...; 12/14/24, 1:12 PM
Rabel said...: I'd be willing to bet that it wasn't the first time, minus your qualifier.; 12/14/24, 1:16 PM
Rabel said...: I have now become a non-combatant in both the fluoride war and the DST war.; 12/14/24, 1:20 PM
effinayright said...: Just askin', but if "Standard time all year works best the further south you are. Far northern states would have pre 5AM sunrise in summer, which is disconcerting.", could there be a national Northern Zone that uses DST, while a Southern Zone that stays on Stand Time?

per ChatGPT: "DST is observed in the southern states (e.g., New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania) but not in the northern areas like Queensland or the Northern Territory, as the tropical north has minimal daylight variation."
(note this is in the Southern Hemisphere).

I don't know whether this scheme would be better than what we have now. Anyone want to opine?; 12/14/24, 1:23 PM
Breezy said...: "Also note: the time zones are Very Wide"

So true - we noticed this when we moved from the NE to coastal NC. Sunrise is significantly later in time here. Never appreciated how much the NE leans out into the Atlantic wrt to the rest of the eastern seaboard.; 12/14/24, 1:30 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: What does the Republican Party have to do with Daylight Savings Time?; 12/14/24, 1:37 PM
Jeff Weimer said...: It was ok when it was 6/6, but the 8/4 we suffer now is terrible. Going to one or the other is not a bad idea. What are the problems Arizona has? That would be helpful.; 12/14/24, 1:39 PM
gilbar said...: "why not just go back to local solar time? All the map apps could be rejiggered to tell you the local time on arrival."

This could (WOULD!) tie in directly to the use of GMT (Zulu time).
Meridian is (IS! when the sun is at its highest point.. Whether you admit it or NOT; 12/14/24, 1:48 PM
NKP said...: Kids will NEVER wait in the dark if the schools just change school hours. But any change of hours would affect teachers and admin and they have unions and contracts and protection... Unlike the kids.; 12/14/24, 1:48 PM
gilbar said...: it was walking TO school in the dark, and NO! no kids walk ANYWHERE anymore*

no kids walk ANYWHERE anymore* sometimes, i WONDER WHY we are all obese; 12/14/24, 1:50 PM
LH in Montana said...: Here in Northern Montana, our days our so short in winter and extremely long in winter. If we were to stay on standard time, in June it would start getting light BEFORE 4am.

I think, however, I'd prefer to get rid of standard time and stick with Daylight Savings. It would mean in December, sunrise would be around 10am, but the little bit of extra light in the afternoon would be nice.; 12/14/24, 1:54 PM
BG said...: Yes, if they had left it at 6/6 it wouldn't be so bad. But now...ugh.; 12/14/24, 1:55 PM
Wa St Blogger said...: Can't Trump just fix the axial tilt a little? Maybe make 100 degrees? Supposedly that used to be the way it was at some point in the past. That way the difference between summer and winter daylight ranges would be much narrower.; 12/14/24, 1:57 PM
Daddy Binx said...: A good compromise would be to keep the "Fall back" an hour, but lose the "Spring forward" one.; 12/14/24, 2:02 PM
SteveWe said...: Arizona's problem with DST is heat. To beat the summer heat we don't set our clocks forward in the spring. We don't want to start the day a hour later than solar time because it's hotter an hour later.; 12/14/24, 2:04 PM
Mason G said...: You're going to whine every time Trump does something you think he shouldn't? Ok then.; 12/14/24, 2:08 PM
Eva Marie said...: What is this Daylight Savings Time you talk about? Arizona never got on that bandwagon much to the derision of all the other states. Who’s laughing now?; 12/14/24, 2:10 PM
Mason G said...: "Far northern states would have pre 5AM sunrise in summer, which is disconcerting."

Phoenix is hardly "far northern", sunrise is around a quarter after five in June.

"Also note: the time zones are Very Wide, so people on the east edge of time zones have very different sunrise/sunset times than people on the west edge of the zone."

This seems to be the most overlooked aspect of the discussion. If changing the clocks by an hour helps one side, it screws things up on the other.; 12/14/24, 2:16 PM
Mr. Forward said...: God's time vs. government time.; 12/14/24, 2:17 PM
Readering said...: Next to face GOP axe? Happy Holidays?; 12/14/24, 2:22 PM
Quaestor said...: DST was suggested by Ben Franklin as a means to help farmers to address a problem they somehow didn't realize they had with a solution that somehow worked. Or not. It's been solved now with modern farming technology -- GPS cultivation machines with all the lighting needed at the touch of a button. Farmers aren't havesting with scythes and sickles by moonlight anymore, so what's the point? Long summer evenings on the golf course for the leisured class?

Trump should show us the numbers. The left will argue that changing the clocks foward and back is natural and sacred, that not having DST will melt Antarctica and exterminate migratory waterfowl.; 12/14/24, 2:27 PM
Original Mike said...: Special relativity teaches us that we each carry around our own personal time zone. Proper time.; 12/14/24, 2:28 PM
narciso said...: We didnt adopt it until we beat the Germans; 12/14/24, 3:05 PM
Ampersand said...: Why can't we find a politician capable of giving all of us at least 12 hours of daylight every day? Sheesh! We're fighting the wrong battle here. A simple adjustment to the Earth's axial tilt would solve the problem. I certainly never voted for axial tilt, and neither did you. It's undemocratic, and harms the poor and BIPOCs disproportionately. What's more, the Earth is currently tilted to the right, and you know that's a dog whistle for the worst people.; 12/14/24, 3:10 PM
Original Mike said...: "Why can't we find a politician capable of giving all of us at least 12 hours of daylight every day?…A simple adjustment to the Earth's axial tilt would solve the problem."

That's the real reason Trump wants to buy Greenland.; 12/14/24, 3:16 PM
Ampersand said...: We're on the same wavelength here, Original Mike. We must be using the same sort of tin in our hats.; 12/14/24, 3:20 PM
RJ said...: "Yes, there is a federal law, however, states can petition to opt out, and no petition has ever been denied."

Since no state operates on summer time year round, apparently no state has ever petitioned to do so.; 12/14/24, 3:20 PM
Jim Gust said...: Foolish waste of political capital. One other president already took this road, Jimmy Carter. It did not end well for him. He made DST year round. It lasted until mid December, when no one was willing to have their kids wait for the school bus in the dark. I remember the traffic jams around Boston as parents all started driving their kids in the morning.; 12/14/24, 3:27 PM
FullMoon said...: Good idea. Eventually a.m. would be p.m., and over 24 years, we would lose an entire day, and today would be yesterday.; 12/14/24, 3:50 PM