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.
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.
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