On Sunday, in a long, rambling Truth Social post, President Donald Trump revealed the real reason he’s been pushing for permanent Daylight Saving Time. Unsurprisingly, it’s for the benefit of golf. What’s more, in the same post, he doxxed a Republican senator by revealing his personal cell phone number.
“Everybody in Arkansas, [Senator] Tom Cotton (R-AK), a friend of mine, is holding up a very important Bill,” posted the president. “It’s called, ‘The Sunshine Protection Act’ or, ‘We Don’t Want to Change Our Clocks Twice a Year Act.’ For some reason, Tom is stopping the Bill and, in the Senate, it’s very easy to do, it only takes one! It should pass overwhelmingly, in a Bipartisan fashion. So, everyone in Arkansas, a State I love, and won 3 times, the last by by 34 points, tell Tom to, GET IT DONE! It will be appreciated by all. Nobody wants to spend their precious time running all over the place, turning Clocks back twice a year and, having sunshine in the afternoon is better than early in the morning!”
Here Trump tipped his hand, revealing his actual justification for the bill: “The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments. Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work. See letter from Brian Rolapp, CEO of the PGA TOUR below. 65 percent PLUS want more sun in the afternoon, Daylight Saving Time (The way it is now!), but 100 percent don’t want to change their Clocks twice a year. They want to, as they say, ‘LOCK THE CLOCK!’ Who doesn’t? It’s very expensive for our Nation where you have high and dangerous steeples to reach, like on churches and municipal buildings. Almost everybody wants ‘The Sunshine Protection Act’ to pass, except for Tom Cotton. To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself. Call Tom on his cellphone…” The president went on to reveal what he asserts is Cotton’s actual phone number.
Just start the event earlier you moron. Jesus this guy is thick. I don’t like changing the clocks either, but that is the dumbest reason to stop.
Yeah, but narcissists like donnie don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves.
If the big baby donnie has a minor inconvenience, well then, the world should change for the big baby.
Maybe he thinks this changes the amount of time the sun is up?
I considered trying to figure out what he’s thinking to be a tremendous waste of time and effort.
I don’t even know you, but I’m quite certain there’s something better you could be doing with your time and that would make you much happier. That’s not a criticism, just a piece of advice.
I hate to agree with Trump about anything, but events have to be planned around the schedules of prospective attendees. DST exists because it causes most peoples’ schedules to be adjusted, and proponents of both abolition and permanence are seeking to do just that.
You think the people that golf or attend golf events at that level don’t change their calendars at will for every little thing?
I couldn’t care less about professional golf. Something as simple as an evening or morning walk with a friend depends on other peoples’ work schedules. Which time of day you want to take that walk might shape which side of the debate you’re on.
I slightly prefer DST, but my main position is no clock changes. Both the spring and fall changes are associated with spikes in car crashes and health emergencies.
I don’t care how you feel about it, I just think the premise that Trump is considerate of other people’s schedules is fucking hilarious
No no no you see it’s all about MORE SUNSHINE. Can’t you read? Everybody loves more sunshine! Daylight Saving Time is all about SAVING DAYLIGHT! Permanent Daylight Saving Time means Permanent Daylight!
Okay I’m not a good satirist. You know how long I’ve been using the exact same argument? I’m done with Government-mandated clock manipulation. God put the Sun directly above our heads at noon. Permanent Standard Time is the only righteous policy.
And his followers think this means that he’s actually lengthening the day to give us more daylight.
Some years back, they extended DST here in New Zealand by about a month each side. It now runs from September to April. I like it better being longer.
I don’t care why he’s doing it, I just want it done.
I don’t see anything wrong with giving out Senator’s numbers. Do they serve the people or not? Do this more often. Like, constantly.
Direct access to your representative is reserved for those that have bribed them enough. (Corporations and awful people who own corporations).
We need to go to permanent standard time. Just fall back on November 1st and never change the clocks again.
We need to go to permanent… yada yada
Just don’t change the clocks Nov 1, or ever again.
Yada yada.
And this is why we still have daylight savings time.
Why?
Trump is an asshole, but we should adopt permanent something. I don’t care if it’s DST or standard time as long as we stop changing the clocks.
The article notes people in northern states tend to be more opposed to permanent DST. It seems odd to me nobody has seriously proposed splitting time zones north/south, i.e. New York would be on Eastern Standard Time, and Florida would be on Atlantic Standard Time - an hour later, equivalent to Eastern Daylight Time.
Honestly we should just move to a timezoneless universal time. Places in one part of the world could open at 8:00 and close at 18:00 and somewhere on the other side of the world would open from 20:00 to 6:00. No zone change in travel or scheduling meetings would simplify communications and logistics, and you can also ditch this asinine “saving” concept as you’ll have decoupled when the sun rises from an arbitrary number.
One big problem with that is changing days in the middle of the day…
You have a global day and you have local euphemisms. “Evening” just becomes “the dark after lunch” instead of “the dark after noon.” That’s a trivial linguistic adjustment to make to ensure that the thing we actually care about syncing up for convenience is synched up for convenience.
Edit: we already have such euphemisms and ambiguities in English:
- tomorrow: the day I wake up next
- night: the dark before I sleep (saving “morning” generally for after you wake and not a strict time like 00:00)
- next (as in “weekend”): 2 weekends from now
- biweekly/bimonthly: once every other OR twice every
Words have meaning because many people want to use them. I very much doubt people would adopt something like this within the same country much less worldwide. You could be right and that people might actually change but for something so drastic (and cultural even), I’m willing to bet few would bother.
I very much doubt people would adopt something like this within the same country
This is how they’ve been doing it in China for awhile now, and it seems… fine
China’s using CST/UTC+8 and while there are variations from the west to the east for the time of day, that’s only a variation of 5 hours in the worst case. I’m flubbing the stats here a little but essentially your average is going to be within 2 hours of daylight differences which is your variance across seasons anyways.
What was being proposed was something throughout the world where someone’s morning could be another’s night. That’s a huge difference and not at all comparable.
It’d probably be like the attempt by the French Revolutionaries to adopt metric time, nobody would listen and somebody will get shit over it. At best you may be able to get say the federal government to adopt and push it but the end result of that would probably be that one road in Arizona with roadsigns in meters and not miles, but otherwise ignored by the states and non federal individuals and entities.
For better or worse, the vast majority of people think in terms of local communities, not a global one, so this is still a massive ask. UTC already exists for the industries that need it (and people chronically online enough to have more global than local social connections).
Why is that a problem? That seems like something the night shift figured out ages ago.
We already have States that have opted out. If they want to opt in to DST that should be up to them IMO.
I’m so with you here. Pick DST or standard whatever will get us to stop changing time. Can always revisit which one we want later ✌️
Lol that would require another time change
Farmers literally don’t care what time it is. They aren’t waiting until 9am to do work their fields, they are going out when they should regardless of the time. No farmer is going to say “damn, sure would be nice to work on my field, but it’s only 5am so I can’t go out yet.”
It was a way to save fuel and coal during WW1. It should have been over turned after the war. It’s not needed any longer
The argument I’ve always heard isn’t that it helps them with their work, but that it helps them with the rest of their life. Since so much of their work has to be done during the day, having more time at night to go to the store and such could potentially be nice.
It’s still dumb, but it’s slightly less dumb.
That makes no sense. This doesn’t change the amount of time in a day (or daylight in a day). They still have to get everything done in the same amount of time. Farmers have always been a red herring for DST.
I think the real problem is that our time zones are too fat. The best modern reason I can find for DST is reducing accidents during typical “rush hour” commuting times. No matter what we choose, one or both “edges” of a time zone will be left doing either the morning or evening commutes in the dark, which significantly increases likelihood of accidents. We usually err on the side of evening commute if there isn’t enough daylight for both because we tend to send kids to school around the same time as the morning commutes, and having a bunch of children walking around in the dark while assholes are in a hurry to get to work is a recipe for disaster.
Yet another problem that could be solved by better infrastructure for public transit…
During the morning, I mean. When the morning comes earlier, in theory the farmer that started at sunrise can get everything done at an earlier hour and be able to, like, go to the bank or whatever. Like I said, it’s dumb, but slightly less dumb than "farmers get to work earlier.
That said, though, I don’t see how we could have “thinner” time zones. If you divide a 360-degree sphere into 24 equal arcs, you’re kind of stuck with 15-degree time zones, give or take. I guess we could redefine an hour to be 40 minutes, and thus have 36 ten-degree time zones, but that seems like a lot of work. And time zones that aren’t an hour apart are madness.
Yeah, public transit would fix this pretty nicely. That plus a shorter workday, and a commensurate shorter school day.
I’d buy that any of that mattered if our time zone borders were straight vertical lines, but they aren’t. The time zone borders are wonky as hell already. Also, we have 25 time zones currently (-12h through +12h with 0h in the middle), and there are exceptions all over the place. There are places that are +13h and +14h, there are 30m and 45m changes, etc.
We don’t need the whole world to redefine an hour for us to go from 4 time zones to 6. We could have extreme east and west regions joining with their nearest oceanic time zones to give us a broader range of times and then re-align the interior regions in a way that makes as much sense as possible and probably be in a much better place.
edit: Also, I don’t really know why I am doing such a deep dive into time zones, I really don’t care that much personally. All my clocks change themselves basically, and my commute is going to be in the dark all winter anyway…
I’ve worked swingshift for over 20 years and trust me when I say it, the switch from daylight savings in the winter and in the springtime is always a struggle for that week afterwards, this would be a welcomed improvement, but I’m not going to give this win to Donny if it even happens at all. I know that this has been an ongoing thing for longer than I can remember actually.
My friend’s stepdad died of a heart attack last year 2 days after the time change. I would not be the least bit surprised if that was a part of the cause. Apparently, every time there is a big uptick in heart attacks. Seems like people are dying for no fucking reason.
Wow. I never thought I’d read something I agree with. Longer evenings are a win. Do it you miserable old rapist, make one positive change in this life.
Idc why he’s doing it, it just needs to get done. The oppressive anticipation of “Fall back” is looming again and I don’t want to do it.
Even when i agree with him i cant read his horseshit posts. And even when it is something good he still only wants it for his own shitass personal benefit. Fuck him and all his voters. I would endure another fifty years of daylight savings to avoid another day of his presidency.
Cluster B doing Cluster B things. Narcissists are the worst of the lot.
I want to fall back but then never spring forward. Spring shift is the worst.
I like being outside in the not dark at 9pm.
I like waking up in the not dark.
I don’t give a shit if we go to permanent standard or daylight saving time. I just want to stop the stupid time shifts.
I would think the POTUS in the middle of losing multiple military and economic wars, would have better use of his time.
I think the reality will be a mixed response because it won’t solve the shorter days problems. It’s still going to be fairly miserable weather and shorter days, but less so.
Mornings are already crap when you’re working day shift. Most of my coworkers roll in half asleep and looking for breakfast at work (weird imo, I wake up early enough to do all that before work) and don’t appear to be fully functional before 9am, minus some outliers. I don’t see it impacting that mess much.
The real win for everyone is not having to chase clocks around the house biannually, not getting fully flipped for about 2wks.
longer evenings are not a win for folks in southern states with sleep and mental health problems. i think it’s bonkers that it’s still light outside past 8p. here and it seriously messes with me every year, insomnia and deep depression for months. just keep us on standard!
That’s odd. I live in Seattle. In the summer it’s light until 10PM, and most of us think it’s extremely fun
look, all i know is that i feel wildly overstimulated, wired, and unable to rest normally and horrifically depressed at the same time, between may and sept of every year. but it’s also frequently 115f and the blinding sun shines directly in my face during my hour drive home.
a little darker a little earlier would be a boon to my mental and physical health. i expect your experience in a very different climate is dissimilar to mine.
Blackout curtains. They’re pretty easy to find these days.
I WANNA PLAY* GOLF BUT I WANNA SLEEP LATE!
There’s plenty of golfers out on the greens at the crack of dawn, but it ain’t gonna be Fatty.
*cheat at
Imagine having the power to change a country’s clocks permanently while still being a degenerate pedophile. Now that’s multi-tasking!
The clocks will replace the “O’Clock” part of every hour with “Hail America”.
So one hour after noon would be announced as “One Hail America”
In the show Veep, there’s a character who goes on a very myopic crusade against daylight saving time
He’s doing it because Canada has already done it
Most of the provinces gave months of prep that this was happening.
wait what? did I miss it while off work or is it really such a meaningless and useless thing that I just didn’t notice?
No, its that we’re not changing the clocks this coming November.
But instead of rushing it through last minute, BC, for example, announced it March 2nd.
DST is mostly because of golf, and that’s reason enough we should abolish it.
ETA: if you play golf, I hate you. You are helping to prop up decades of systemic oppression. Fuck your lawns and your country clubs and your gated communities and your evening sunlight.
Who still has clocks they need to change and don’t have a reason for liking that specific clock? If you like analog clocks I doubt you care about setting it. If you don’t, what clock do you still own that needs resetting? I drive old cars so that’s one I guess,and the stove. That’s it
The real reason to stop changing times isn’t because of older clocks, there is real data that shows a spike in accidents and heart attacks after we change the clock
I have a bunch of equipment that I have to support that doesn’t support automatic time changes. I tried to talk them into using UTC but maths are too hard.
THATS WHAT UTC IS FOR!!!
Stove and microwave have their own clocks with no sync between them, car ‘technically’ automatically updates but I swear for a week straight after the change it will still display the ‘old’ time and then flip back once I start driving. I’ve got a boombox I don’t care what the time says on it and a clock radio at my desk which I do care.
But, to your point, even with Standard and Daylight time as it is, I just reset the stove and microwave in about thirty seconds and I’m good the rest of the way. It’s really not that important to me. I get up when it’s dark and go to bed when it’s dark almost any time of the year.
My microwave clock drifts that much that it’s useless as a clock
How… how is that possible with a digital clock?
In theory if you sync the clock with the mains frequency then you get an accurate clock, or you could use the cheapest component you can find because fuck it it’s a microwave and if it looses 10 seconds a day no one will notice, untill 3 months later and you wonder why it’s 15minutes out
You’re saying that the frequency of the alternating current of house mains is how the microwave keeps time!? I’m not doubting, it make sense, I’m just gobsmacked
No but it’s the best method to use, large institutional buildings used to have clocks that did this, and all the clocks kept in sync. The power grid used to (not sure if still do) maintain a set number of oscillations over the day so in theory every 24hours a known amount.
However the microwave probably doesn’t and has a shitty quartz crystal for the lowest possible price.
What a microwave does have is a nice transformer that you can make a spot welder out of with a bit of thick wire. Obviously don’t do this unless you know what your are doing.
broken clock is right twice a year
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Wanting to end the penny (still did it illegally)
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This (pending legality)
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Such accuracy is unprecedented in the current administration.
