DEAR READER: Though I’m sure you’ve already heard the news that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered America’s diplomatic corps to stop using the Calibri typeface, a story this big deserves more scrutiny.
The U.S. State Department reverted to the more formal Times New Roman font on December 10, reversing the Biden Administration’s shift to Calibri, which Rubio dismissed as incompatible with the dignity of U.S. government documents.
Rubio also charged that the 2023 shift to Calibri emerged from the misguided “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” policies pursued by his predecessor, Antony Blinken, an as-yet-unindicted Biden co-conspirator.
“Typography shapes how official documents are perceived in terms of cohesion, professionalism and formality,” Rubio said in a cable to U.S. embassies and consulates abroad.
This column will now demonstrate how something as seemingly simple as a font can undermine attempts to Make America Great Again.
Here is a sentence calculated to subliminally advance the left-wing DEI agenda using Calibri:
Slavery was bad.
Now, here’s the same sentence in Times New Roman:
Slavery was bad.
As you can easily see, Calibri makes an already subversive idea that much worse.
Let’s try it again, first in Calibri, then in Times New Roman:
An immigrant ate my dog.
An immigrant ate my dog.
It’s subtle, eh? But stealthy, too. Call it a woke-up call.
Secretary Rubio observed that the Biden-Blinken switch to Calibri supposedly would have mitigated “accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities.” It not only failed to achieve that goal, he says, it cost the department $145,000 of its multi-billion-dollar budget! Rubio failed to offer evidence, but we can trust it will be forthcoming. You can bet that some radical-left Democrat will claim Calibri is more economical because serifs cost more.
While we’re at it: What was Microsoft’s hidden agenda when it released Calibri in 2006 as part of its Office suite?
The font you’re reading right now is called Merriweather. Typographers maintain it blends old-fashioned readability with 21st century utility, especially since so many of us read stories on our screens. It’s also in the public domain. Consider how easy it is to comprehend something Rubio said about Donald J. Trump during the 2016 primaries:
“He runs on this idea that he is fighting for the little guy. But he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy. If you all have friends who are thinking about voting for Donald Trump, friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”
I could give it to you in Calibri, and Times New Roman as well, but nothing would get lost in the translation.
MEANTIME, as a public service, this column from time to time will investigate social media scuttlebutt and print the whole truth, letting the chips fall where they may. That said, I have reached out to reliable sources and determined there is no truth to the chatter that the Hoquiam Lions Club next year will replace its time-honored Rain Derby with a contest awarding a $1,000 first-prize to the person who comes closest to guessing how many times state Rep. Jim Walsh gets his picture in the paper in 2026. The wags who spread this rumor even came up with a tie-breaker based on the contestant who could come closest to guessing how many times Walsh was on the front page vs. an inside page.
More revelations in the weeks to come.
For now, a Merriweather “Merry Christmas!” God bless us, every one.
John C. Hughes was chief historian for the Office of the Secretary of State for 17 years after retiring as editor and publisher of The Daily World in 2008.
