Across the United States, Daylight Saving Time (DST) remains a near-universal irritant as clocks spring forward on March 9, 2025, robbing millions of an hour of sleep and sparking bipartisan grumbling. Polls from Gallup in 2024 showed over 60% of Americans want to ditch the practice entirely, citing disrupted sleep, increased car accidents—up 6% in the week after the change per a 2020 study—and general annoyance at resetting everything from microwaves to car clocks. Social media platforms like X light up annually with memes and rants, with users like @SleepyJoe420 tweeting, “DST is proof the government hates us,” reflecting a rare consensus across political divides. Even states like Arizona and Hawaii, which opt out, watch smugly as the rest of the nation stumbles through the biannual ritual, fueling calls for Congress to finally kill it—though legislative efforts like the Sunshine Protection Act stall year after year.
 

The origins of DST in the U.S. trace back to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, but the idea that he instituted it as a psychological operation to flex federal omnipotence has gained traction among conspiracy-minded critics. While DST was first adopted during World War I in 1918 to save energy—a policy FDR revived in 1942 as a wartime measure under the War Time Act—some argue it doubled as a subtle power play. The theory posits that by arbitrarily shifting time, FDR aimed to condition civilians to accept government overreach, proving it could alter something as fundamental as the day’s rhythm without public input, all under the guise of patriotic duty. No direct evidence from FDR’s archives supports this psyop angle, but posts on X like “FDR changed time to mess with our heads” tap into a broader distrust of centralized control, amplified by today’s polarized climate.
 

Historians counter that FDR’s DST was less about mind games and more about practicality—extending daylight for war production and conserving coal—but the resentment persists because it ignores how people actually feel. The twice-yearly shift disrupts circadian rhythms, with studies from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine linking it to heart attacks and workplace injuries, yet the federal government clings to it like a relic of wartime propaganda. Critics argue it’s a perfect symbol of bureaucratic arrogance: a policy nobody asked for, few defend, and one that steamrolls public sentiment—70% of Americans told Pew in 2023 they’d rather pick a time and stick to it. As March 2025’s clock-jump reignites the debate, the notion that FDR wielded DST to toy with perceptions of federal power lingers as a half-serious, half-satirical jab at a system that still can’t let go of an outdated idea.