Permanent DST? Be careful what you wish for -- March 17, 2022 column

By MARSHA MERCER 

Daylight saving time is having its, well, day in the sun. 

After “springing forward” Sunday, senators surprised everyone Tuesday by unanimously passing, on a voice vote, a bill to make daylight saving time permanent. 

That Republicans and Democrats actually agree on something reflects the rise of a grassroots issue. People hate having to reset their clocks twice a year, and nearly every state has addressed whether to make daylight saving time permanent. 

Eighteen states have approved the change since 2018, but they can’t take effect until federal law changes. 

The Senate bill would make daylight saving permanent unless a state chooses to remain on standard time year round. Only Hawaii and Arizona, except for the Navajo Nation, now keep standard time year round. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi favors permanent daylight saving time and President Joe Biden, as a senator, supported it. At a subcommittee hearing March 9, Rep. Frank Pallone, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, called for a Department of Transportation study on the effects of a permanent change to daylight saving time. 

The study may slow momentum, but a switch to permanent daylight saving time seems on track. If the House agrees, we could stop changing our clocks in November 2023. 

But wait. We’ve been here before, and it wasn’t pretty. 

After the oil embargo of 1973, Americans were gung-ho for permanent daylight saving time as a way to save fuel. With 79% of Americans in favor, Congress passed a bill that President Richard Nixon signed, starting a trial of permanent daylight saving time in January 1974. 

 Then people started living with dark mornings. The sun did not rise in January in Virginia, for example, until about 8:24 a.m. 

 Children around the country were forced to wait in the dark for the school bus, and several died on their way to school. The fuel savings weren’t as much as expected. Public support plummeted below 50%, and Congress ended the experiment after six months. 

Today, our devices change the time for us, but what isn’t so easy is resetting our biological rhythm. Medical studies link the transition to daylight saving time to increased strokes, heart attacks and teen sleep deprivation. 

 But here’s the thing: The choice need not be either permanent daylight time or the status quo of changing clocks twice a year. There is a third option: keep standard time year round. 

Seven in 10 people want to stop changing clocks, but 40% favor year-round standard time while 31% favor year-round daylight saving time, according to a 2019 AP-NORC survey. 

Permanent standard – not saving -- time “aligns best with human circadian biology and provides distinct benefits for public health and safety,” says the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, whose members include accredited sleep centers, physicians, scientists and other health professionals. 

The agriculture industry has opposed daylight saving time since it was first instituted during World War I. Farmers prefer to use the sun for their chores.

The nonpartisan Save Standard Time, whose members include medical, education and religious groups, also advocates for standard time year round. 

But the retail, golf and tourism industries are pushing for permanent daylight saving time. 

A bill to exempt Virginia from daylight saving time and keep standard time year around failed this year in the Virginia General Assembly. 

If the U.S. Senate bill were to become law, a crazy quilt of standard and daylight saving times, state by state, could result. 

Now is the time for people to speak up. 

“As we wait to see if/when this legislation is considered in the House, I want to know what you think,” U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, said Wednesday in an email. 

 Her survey asks whether to make daylight saving time permanent, keep the status quo (change time twice a year) or “Unsure/Other.” That third choice indicates the House is not seriously considering keeping standard time year round. 

What time do you want it to be? I asked a year ago in this space. 

Between permanent daylight saving time and the status quo, I still would pick the status quo. I can put up with changing clocks to see daylight on winter mornings. 

Better would be to make standard time permanent since it suits our natural world. 

 © 2022 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved. 30

Trump tweets and plays us `like a Stradivarius' -- July 18, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

For an apt description of President Donald Trump’s shrewd use of social media, you need look no further than Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, Democrat of Missouri.

“He’s playing us like a Stradivarius,” Cleaver, a United Methodist minister, said Wednesday.

A day earlier, the House voted 240 to 187 to strongly condemn as racist Trump’s tweets aimed at four members of Congress who are women of color. Cleaver had been presiding officer during the acrimonious run-up to the vote.

As Democrats and Republicans feuded, Cleaver grew frustrated, put down the gavel and walked away, abandoning the chair.  

“My suggestion to the House and the Senate and the people of the country is to forget the man’s tweets. . . He knows that there will be a reaction, and he also knows that a portion of his base is OK with him insulting people.” Cleaver said Wednesday on CNN.

We know the pattern. Whenever Trump feels threatened, he goes on the offensive with his Twitter account -- and Democrats reliably take the bait.  

If former special counsel Robert Mueller is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill about his investigation into Russians helping Trump win in 2016, Trump tweets – and changes the subject. Mueller’s appearance was postponed until July 24.

If the news focuses on deplorable conditions on the border or on a gazillionaire child predator Trump partied with, Trump tweets – and changes the subject.

Outraged Democrats always respond, but should they?  

“He’s going to insult some others, he’s going to speak some untruths and so forth – we need to just let him hang out at the White House and do that,” Cleaver said.

It’s not easy to let a president’s untruths and malicious tone go unchallenged.

Trump claimed falsely the four representatives “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world.” If they didn’t like it here, they should go back where they came from, he said.

The tweets were directed -- not by name -- to freshman Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

All are fierce Trump critics and American citizens born in the United States -- except for Omar, who was born in Somalia and is a naturalized citizen.

When House Democrats rightly defended their colleagues, Trump triumphantly tweeted: “The Dems were trying to distance themselves from the four `progressives,’ but now they are forced to embrace them. That means they are endorsing Socialism, hate of Israel and the USA! Not good for Democrats!”

That’s absurd, of course, but it’s a sign of what’s ahead. Trump’s strategy is to hurl personal insults and racially infused, “love it or leave it” rhetoric while insisting he’s not racist.

“Those tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!” he tweeted.

The House resolution condemning his tweets quoted Presidents Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan in praise of immigrants and under House rules avoided calling Trump himself a racist.

And yet 57 percent of Americans think Trump is a racist, a poll conducted last year by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reported.

His tweets and policies put him on the wrong side of history and demography. The United States is inevitably becoming more diverse.

In 2013 for the first time, most infants under age 1 in the United States were nonwhite, the Census Bureau reported. In 2016, more non-Hispanic whites died than were born in 26 states, an analysis of Census data by the Applied Population Lab at the University of Wisconsin found.

The United States is projected to become majority minority by 2045. That is, blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other minorities will be a majority and whites will be in the minority.

But almost half of white Americans say the country’s becoming majority nonwhite would “weaken American customs and values,” a Pew Research Center survey in March found.

Make no mistake, Trump knows his tweets and anti-immigrant policies tap into and feed those fears about the future.

If Democratic presidential candidates ignore or fail to take the fears seriously while responding to his every hateful tweet, Trump will keep playing us.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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