By Tyler Durden | Source
President-elect Trump on Friday said he and fellow Republicans would make a full effort to liberate Americans from daylight saving time and its twice-yearly clock adjustments — which take a human toll that ranges from annoyance to death.
“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,” wrote Trump in posts to his own TruthSocial platform as well as X.
While his statement was welcome news to many people across the political spectrum, it prompted immediate confusion about what exactly he was proposing. There are two approaches to ending those aggravating clock adjustments on the second Sunday in March and first Sunday in November:
- Eliminating daylight saving time, which would mean year-round “standard time”
- Making daylight saving time permanent
Many people who detest the changing of the clocks casually call for “doing away with daylight saving time,” not appreciating that, taken literally, it would mean their summers would have earlier sunrises and sunsets. It’s not clear if Trump unintentionally fell into using that language, or if he really wants to see permanent standard time — which is already the state of affairs in Arizona and Hawaii.
Like so many of the nation’s ills, daylight saving time sprang from the warfare state: It was first introduced during World War I with the goal of conserving fuel. Woodrow Wilson’s interventionist idiocy unjustly killed 115,516 American service members, and daylight saving time keeps on taking lives on the home front. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder found that around 30 traffic-accident fatalities a year may result from the disruption in sleep rhythms, while another study found a 3% daily spike in total mortality in the week after the spring clock adjustment.
Permanent daylight saving time is appealing to people who want to enjoy more daylight when they leave work. It also has the support of retailers, restaurants, recreation leagues and other organizations that do better with more light at day’s end. Criminals may oppose it: Research has found that dangerous crime increases 7% when daylight saving time ends each fall.
That’s not to say permanent daylight saving time is a no-brainer. That option comes at the price of many more Americans in northern states waking up to darkness at 8am and even later during the winter months. “A lot of people prefer to have that daylight at the end of the day instead,” University of Pennsylvania clinical psychology professor Philip Gehrman told the New York Times. “But those mornings are going to get dark.” Those dark mornings are cited as a potential safety risk to children waiting at bus stops and walking to schools.
Meanwhile, many sleep experts say permanent standard time is the healthier option for the human body. “If you get too much light too late in the evening, it disrupts your sleep, and we are essentially creating a months-long environment in which we are actually receiving light at a time that is later in the day than is optimal for our health,” public health professor Dr. Adam Spira of Johns Hopkins told CNN.
A 2021 AP-NORC poll found that only 25% of Americans want to keep flipping the clocks back and forth, while 43% said they wanted standard time all year, and 32% said daylight saving time should be made permanent. It’s likely many respondents would change their stances — in both directions — if they had a deeper understanding of each option’s implications.
In November, Trump wing-men Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — who are heading up his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — both hinted that they’d like to see an end to the clock changes. Trump’s son, Don Jr, immediately chimed in, saying, “Leave it daylight saving time always.”
It’s a topic many people are passionate about, which is why it’s a shame Trump didn’t throw it into this year’s presidential election mix. In the wake of his announced opposition to the clock changes, social media lit up with people sharing their own views on the topic:
I did hear him say Arizona, but did not pay enough attention to how; did he agree with AZ or not.
I want the changing to stop. Will prefere normal time, but will compromise on summer-time as we call it in North-Europe.
We have a midsummer fire tradition (the northern countries), and it is very difficult to see the fire before dark, and dark is midnight in midsummer, with the summer-time.
Before covid we in EU were promised no more clock changing, but as always with the EU, nothing more happened than the promise.
I think the confusion among animals (deer) running into cars, as the cars drive earlier to work in summer-time, and people having heart attacks, and car accidents from “jet-lag” (Trump stated statistics). Those reasons are more than enough for me to “vote” KILL it 😉
Trump is quite the polarizing character!
The author could have titled this article
“END daylight savings time “
Instead of “kill”.
Although I’ve seen “kill the bill” for NEW bills, I think he can only END an existing bill😁
But associating T with the word KILL is SO much more exciting!😂
I’m not perturbed, just observing. It’s entirely possible I’m reading Way Too Much into this wording, and should permanently hang up my white powdered wig, and black robes.🤔
It’s also possible, that while We may be triggered by an article, healthy!,
an author may reveal their own triggering issues,
healthy!
♥️
I don’t mind it just the way it is. I say don’t change it.
Si perché tra i problemi più importanti attualmente dell umanità riguardano l ora legale…. Mai nessun leader parla di soldi o del fatto Che l umanità è intrappolata nella schiavitù del lavoro, che gli stipendi sono fatti ad hoc per continuare a perpetrare la costante necessità di essi perché sono dosati per bastare a malapena fino al successivo, per toglierci il diritto Ad esistere al di fuori di essi neanche per poco .. però mettiamo in agenda l ora legale. Bisogna pur fare finta di fare qualcosa per fare passare il tempo e le vite e non spostare l attenzione sul nostro unico e vero problema…. Che tiene occupato l 85% della nostra energia vitale e attenzione… E il 15% che ci rimane per sopravvivere arrancando in questa depravazione, usiamolo pure anche per dare retta ai problemi immaginari che coglioni del genere ci propinano come fatti importanti per noi. Ma cosa vi cambia un ora in più o meno di luce al giorno quando tanto ogni giorno sarà comunque e sempre dedito prevalentemente a servire il lavoro e la sua depravazione sulla nostra consapevolezza e libertà??? È più importante un ora di più o meno di luce al giorno o svegliarsi ogni giorno con un giorno Intero di libertà e di scelta davanti a sé per fare ciò che si ama e basta e farlo bene e con amore? Che cazzo me ne frega delle fottute briciole che mi volete fare credere come un banchetto, qualcosa per cui lottare, una libertà da conquistare quando non fanno altro che prenderci per il culo? Un ora in più o meno di luce per la nostra schiavitù non avrà nessuna conseguenza, se non quella di mescolare soltanto la stessa minestra e farcela passare per risotto. È far finta di farci lottare per un nostro diritto e in realtà è perdere tempo e basta. Con un orario standard realizzerete i vostri desideri? Ciò migliorerà la qualità di vita? Avrete più tempo per voi e per la vostra famiglia? Più benessere? Vita più lunga? Meno malattia? Meno stress?
Non credo proprio… Però perdiamoci tempo, elogiamo chi ce lo fa perdere come fautore di idee geniali e ideologie a favore del nostro benessere.
Ah dimenticavo… I nostri figli che lavoreranno fino a 90 anni per la “patria” e per “l onore” ci ringrazieranno di aver lottato per l ora legale….
Is there a way to take option #3, sunny mornings, and evenings light long enough to drive home without the low water sun glaring in one’s eyes 😁
Option #1 and #2 seem too old school duality, yo.🙂↔️