It Is 3 p.m. Somewhere, Apparently
President Donald Trump escalated a dispute over daylight-saving time by posting what he said was the phone number of Republican Senator Tom Cotton, according to Reuters. The episode turned an argument about clocks into an argument about whether a president should publish a lawmaker’s contact information online.
Daylight saving time is already the national ritual in which millions of people lose an hour, gain an hour, and then spend six months blaming every missed appointment on the government. The White House has now added a public-contact-information subplot.
Time Change, Tone Change
The dispute was political, not horological. Lawmakers and presidents have argued for years over whether the country should keep changing clocks or adopt one system permanently. But public disagreement usually ends with a statement, a vote or a television appearance—not with one side posting the other side’s supposed phone number.
Reuters described the number as “supposed” because online posts are not exactly a secure chain of custody. It may have been real, wrong, outdated or simply a new way to make constituent services regret having a phone.
The Bottom Line
If the nation cannot agree on what time it is, perhaps the first step is not handing the internet a senator’s telephone number. The clocks will change by themselves. The phone calls do not need help.
Source
Reuters: Trump shares Republican senator’s phone number in feud over time switch