Democracy Savings Time

It is early November, and that means we need to choose. Do we set our clocks forward (Hillary), or backwards (Trump)?

The debate over Daylight Savings Time is simple: everyone hates it, but we do it anyway. Honestly, I hate it as much as anyone else, but I still grudgingly accept the necessity now, because there are two alternatives, both of which are worse:

1. We abolish DST entirely. This means that in summer, when the kids are off school, it gets dark way too early to fully capitalize on the weather and the outdoors. Kids will never wake up early in summer, no matter what savings time regime we are in.

2. We keep DST year round (in other words, don’t turn the clock back in November, keep the shift permanent). The problem here is that in the morning, it will be too dark, right during the busiest time of the day as kids go to school and drivers commute. In winter, sunrise gets later and later, so with permanent DST sunrise would approach 8:00 am.

It occurs to me though that if there’s one way to guarantee voter turnout for an election, put DST on the ballot.