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Joe Blundo| Special to The Columbus Dispatch

Any second now, folks will be fighting over the time of day

I predict the next battle in the culture wars will be over what time it is.

Its inevitable. We already live in a country where people disagree on facts as basic as who won the 2020 presidential election and whether were living through a lethal pandemic or merely a deep-state conspiracy to rebrand the common cold.

And yet once a year (today, in fact), we all obediently move our clocks one hour ahead as ordered by the government. No way can this continue in a polarized nation.

There has always been some grousing about the expectation that everyone adjust their clocks to Daylight Saving Time on the second Sunday in March. But mild grumbling will gave way to passionate outcry as partisans begin to stake out more extreme positions.

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Heres how I see it playing out:

Conservatives will refuse to wear wristwatches, saying personal timepieces are symbols of a tyrannical government that wants too much control over their lives. People should be free to set up their own timekeeping systems and to associate with others of like mind, theyll say.

On some future Jan. 6, theyll gather in Washington, D.C., to storm bars at 9 p.m., demanding Happy Hour pricing because, by their time, its only 5:30.

Progressives, meanwhile, will vigorously defend the concept of a common time with increasingly legalistic fervor. Theyll accuse people whose microwave-oven clocks run two minutes slow of being in league with fascist time-deniers. Theyll say that the song Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is reeks of sedition.

Soon, state legislatures will enter the fray.

Red state lawmakers will attack what they call socialist time by forbidding clocks in public schools, lest children be indoctrinated into a radical time-keeping agenda.

In blue state legislatures, adherence to an agreed-upon time schedule will become a test of character. To advertise their concern for the common good, politicians will tote around large alarm clocks, adding a new layer of meaning to the term woke.

Eventually, the time controversy will spread to the calendar. Far-right extremists will reject all collective attempts to decree what month or year it is. This will allow them to to argue that their 1950ish agenda actually reflects current thinking.

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Far-left extremists will keep the current calendar but rename January, March, May and June because theyre derived from the names of Roman or Greek gods, an unconstitutional mixing of church and state. Theyll substitute the names of endangered species, meaning, for example, that Richard Nixons Jan.9th birthday will now be remembered as Unarmored Three-Spine Stickleback 9th.

The inability to agree on issues as simple as what time, day, month and year it is will consume pundits, ideologues, provocateurs and people of leisure for years. But everyday folkstrying to make a living will simply carry on as usual. No matter what time it is, they never have enough of it.

Joe Blundo is a Dispatch columnist.

joe.blundo@gmail.com

@joeblundo

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Joe Blundo: Hour will soon arrive when Daylight Saving Time at center of culture wars - The Columbus Dispatch