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.

87 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...: absolutely!
but, we shouldn't stop THERE!
imagine the reductions in GREENHOUSE GASES, if we just repealed the law of gravity!
Too extreme? well, baby steps. to start, we should amend the law to 4.9m/s^2; 12/14/24, 1:44 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
James K said...: Standard time all year works best the further south you are.
And the further west in the time zone you are. In the US that's the bigger issue. The eastern time zone is really wide. In New York/New England, without DST the sun rises around 4:30am May-July and sets around 7:30pm. States like Michigan don't really need DST because their sunrise and sunset are almost an hour later.

Being in the northeast, I like DST, and the clock change is no big deal. But if forced to choose, I'd rather have DST year-round. Those December mornings would be dark, but probably not much darker than they already are in Michigan. But the change to late March/early November from early April/late October was stupid.; 12/14/24, 3:54 PM
Maynard said...: We seem to be OK here in Arizona where the clock never changes.

I sort of like DST when we are two hours behind Chicago and three hours behind NYC. As a retired individual, it allows me to slowly catch up on all the big happenings in the USA.; 12/14/24, 3:56 PM
Gospace said...: Switched to zulu time as soon as we dived. Didn't worry about what it was doing topside unless we went to periscope depth for something.; 12/14/24, 3:56 PM
Mason G said...: "Foolish waste of political capital. One other president already took this road, Jimmy Carter. It did not end well for him."

I'd bet if you asked a thousand people what the first thing they think of regarding Jimmy Carter's presidency, not a single one would mention DST.

Just sayin'.; 12/14/24, 3:56 PM
Gospace said...: Kids will NEVER wait in the dark if the schools just change school hours Such a simple solution! Which is why it's not done...; 12/14/24, 3:58 PM
Kate said...: I don't have to change my clocks, but my relationship with the rest of the world shifts twice a year because they change clocks. Just stop it, already.; 12/14/24, 3:59 PM
Mason G said...: "States like Michigan don't really need DST because their sunrise and sunset are almost an hour later.

Being in the northeast, I like DST, and the clock change is no big deal."

"It depends where you live". This, in a nutshell, is the issue. And since not everybody lives in the same place, there is no solution to the problem.; 12/14/24, 4:16 PM
Jim at said...: The folks who want 'more daylight' can just get up earlier and leave the rest of us alone.

I want more daylight at the END of the day. Being in the north, I love the fact it doesn't get dark until 9:45 in the summer.

But pick one or the other. Stop with the back and forth.; 12/14/24, 4:26 PM
Jim at said...: but the little bit of extra light in the afternoon would be nice.

Yes. Darkness at 4:15 sucks.; 12/14/24, 4:29 PM
NKP said...: I don't recall the time changing when I lived in Tokyo. Very strange sun/time rlationship over there. Imagine, in June, the sun in the sky about 4 a.m. and dark around 7 p.m.; 12/14/24, 4:44 PM
No one of consequence said...: I have been saying that I hope Trump focuses on important stuff instead of dumb time-wasting stuff, but this makes me reconsider. From his lips to God‘s ear, please!; 12/14/24, 5:01 PM
The Godfather said...: The reason we have "standard time" in the US is railroads. Used to be that every town had it's own local time, mostly based on the biggest clock in the middle of town, probably on Town Hall or maybe the biggest church. Worked fine for the locals. But when railroads started running through, the RRs needed some "standard" for when the train from Point A would arrive at Point B (yes, there was a time when RRs mostly ran on time and CARED about it). I can't prove that's why the Federal Government has jurisdiction over the clock next to my bed, by I think that's so.

Personally, I favor the the Standard/Day Light Saving Time System, because it requires changing ALL THE CLOCKS IN THE HOUSE twice a year. The reason is that my wife, who knows much, much, MORE than I do about all household chores, and takes responsibility for them, can't deal with "Spring Forward, Fall Back", and I can, so that adjusting the clocks twice a year is a job that I can do. Don't take that away from me!; 12/14/24, 5:01 PM
Joe Bar said...: I prefer to use Siderial Time.; 12/14/24, 5:07 PM
typingtalker said...: How about a compromise ... permanently advance the clocks 30 minutes.; 12/14/24, 5:51 PM
Drago said...: The GOP will probably go with axing the gay/groomer porn in elementary schools that you democraticals defend so passionately. Stuff like DST will come after.; 12/14/24, 5:56 PM
RJ said...: Yes, AZ stays on standard time. But a huge chunk of AZ is in the Navajo reservation , and they change clocks (because the res extends to NM and UT and they want the entire res on the same time). Consider a summer drive up from Gallup, NM northwest across AZ. In Gallup, you are in Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) and that persists as you head northwest across AZ. Then you hit the first segment of the Hopi reservation (who agrees with AZ so they are on MST) for a few miles. You leave that area and are back to MDT. Then you cross the second Hopi segment and revert to MST, and back to MDT for a few miles; then you are back in MST when you exit Hopi territory. Then if you’re heading for the evening in Cameron AZ you have to guess which time zone they are on; they are right on the line.; 12/14/24, 6:15 PM
SteveWe said...: sidereal, but pronounced like you spelled it; 12/14/24, 6:28 PM
Josephbleau said...: Indiana did not have dst when i lived there; 12/14/24, 6:29 PM
Josephbleau said...: “RJ - good point about the width of the time zones. The whole system is pretty artificial to begin with“

Since 360/24 = 15 then 15 deg of longitude is the rotation of the earth in 1 hr. So time zones are 15 deg wide. That is better than having to change minutes and we have only whole hours. The western edge of each time zone gets screwed.

My least favorite time is now, when it dets dark at 4:30. But i can handle it.; 12/14/24, 6:38 PM
Christopher B said...: Changing the days we switch to/from DST was another bad idea from George W Bush. It caused us no end of issues trying to schedule meetings for two or three weeks in March and November with our team in Europe, and I agree with the commenters that our previous schedule at least made some sense in terms of actual daylight transitions.; 12/14/24, 6:39 PM
Christopher B said...: That might make more sense today. Time Zones were originally created by the railroad industry in the 1800s, and a number of the zone division lines only make sense in relation to rail lines. There is, or at least was as I recall, a long curving division between Mountain and Pacific in Nevada that exactly follows a UP mainline, and there are a number of divisions between Central and Eastern in the middle of states that allowed railroads operating south out of Chicago like the old Illinois Central to have the entire line on Central Time.; 12/14/24, 6:48 PM