Trump Says He'll Push to End Daylight Saving Time

Facts

• The practice of moving the clocks forward by an hour in the spring before winding them back in the fall could come to an end in the US after Pres.-elect Donald Trump said Friday that his party would look to eliminate daylight saving time (DST).^[1]
• In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said: "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."^[2]
• The measure was first introduced in the US during World War I as a means of saving energy, but was later repealed after it became unpopular with farmers. It was again temporarily brought back during World War II before being made permanent in 1966 — though states could opt out of the legislation.^[1]
• There was an effort to make DST permanent in the US in 1974. However, it faced a backlash and was repealed after there were reports of children who were killed in pre-dawn traffic accidents as they made their way to school.^[3]
• More recently, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who will serve as Trump's secretary of state, sought to make DST permanent with the Sunshine Protection Act in 2022 — but the move failed in the House after passing in the Senate. Nonetheless, as many as 20 states have moved toward permanent DST.^[4]
• A 2019 poll by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, sampling the views of just over 1K Americans, found that seven in 10 opposed the bi-annual changing of the clocks. However, there was no consensus on whether the clocks should be kept on standard time or on DST.^[5]

Sources: ^[1]BBC News, ^[2]Truth Social, ^[3]Independent, ^[4]Axios and ^[5]Associated Press.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Independent.The scientific evidence is mounting that the constant changing of the clocks is bad for our health and has been linked to increased traffic collisions and work place injuries. It should be abolished, but the bigger question is whether Trump would be able to make it happen.
• Narrative B, as provided by Popular Mechanics. While there are some inconveniences with changing the clocks twice a year, there's plenty of benefits as well. Structuring our days to increase the amount of sunlight we get increases our intake of vitamin D, and has been shown to increase the amount of time we spend exercising and socializing — all of which has important health benefits.