Daylight saving time forever? No thank you, President Trump. | Opinion

Donald Trump is never one for moderation. His big, beautiful (and gaudy) White House ballroom is only outdone by plans for his massive triumphal arch. 

So it’s up to his advisers and aides – those who last in the job long enough to get their business cards back from the printer – to say: “Mr. President, let’s think this idea through a bit more.”

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen with Trump’s plan to make daylight saving time a permanent fixture from Key West to Seattle.

Even worse, the House has now gone along with Trump, voting by a wide margin on July 14 to stop clocks from springing forward and falling back each year.

Who brought back bipartisanship? And why did the left and right join forces for this disaster in the making?

I live in the Midwest. We don't want more darkness in our day.

Now, I get that many Americans don’t like our twice-per-year ritual of resetting clocks to adjust to Earth’s journey around the sun. But the unsettling changes in sleep habits we experience each fall and spring shouldn’t lead us down the darkened path of permanent DST.

For the 70 million Americans who live in the Midwest, year-round DST would mean starting school and work in the dark for much of the winter. 

In my home city of Indianapolis, sunrise is 8 a.m. or later for most of January. A switch to permanent daylight saving time would push back the first rays of light to 9 a.m., long after school buses have discharged their cargo and rush hour traffic has begun to ease. 

Mid-morning is time for second breakfast, not turning off porch lights and opening window blinds.

In response to House passage of the Sunshine Protection Act, an airline trade association warned that changes to DST would cause considerable problems for the aviation industry, including flight disruptions and challenges with domestic and international connections.

We've tried year-round daylight saving time before, right? Didn't take.

Health experts also are speaking out. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine isn’t a fan of our current pattern of time changes but warns that permanent DST would be worse for our health, including an increase in seasonal depression and even a rise in heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.

The Sleep Academy is an advocate of adopting permanent standard time, as are some members of Congress who voted against Trump’s bill. 

Arizona and Hawaii already observe permanent standard time, which means they’re free from the clock-changing exercise most Americans follow. And while I enjoy the extra hours of evening sun that DST provides in the spring and summer, I would give them up for the happy compromise that permanent standard time offers.

This isn’t the first time Congress and the president have messed with our clocks. In 1974, the federal government tried permanent DST as a supposed energy-saving measure, before reversing the order less than a year later because the move became widely unpopular with parents, commuters and farmers.

The same problems that Americans endured because of permanent DST when Richard Nixon haunted the White House would plague us again with Trump on the Iron Throne. 

Yes, Americans grumble about DST, but locking it in year-round is an idea whose time hasn’t come.

Tim Swarens is a former deputy opinion editor for USA TODAY and former opinion editor of The Indianapolis Star.