WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken’s decision to adopt Calibri a “wasteful” diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters. [...]
“This formatting standard aligns with the President’s One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations directive, underscoring the Department’s responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications,” it added.
To staff:
As questions have been raised about my new order reestablishing Times New Roman as the official font of the U.S. State Department, I would like to clarify my reasoning and explain why the font chosen by my predecessor, Calibri, represents unacceptable levels of diversity and inclusion. Please note that the policy is effective immediately, and State Department staff who write or distribute documents in Calibri will face disciplinary action and an investigation as to whether or not they intended the move as DEI.
Firstly, I believe all modern-era typefaces are contrary to our department mission. Diplomacy is meant to be conducted by telegram, telegraph, or diplomatic pouch. It should be conducted in black and white, if possible, and the ideal diplomat is a white-haired caucasian male who has been appointed to the post in exchange for large cash payments in the most recent election cycle. Calibri is a modern font designed to be easily read on electronic devices, but the ideal diplomat would not own electronic devices to begin with.
While Calibri may be the default font for many Microsoft products, in particular, the decision to adopt Microsoft's default font has resulted in State Department subcontractors losing, cumulatively, over $120 million in Default Font Override and Monitoring contracts. These loses jeopardize the solvency of U.S. DFOM industry leaders, threatening a future in which State Department staff must turn to foreign technology firms to modify default font settings on new and upgraded department hardware.
As President Trump's chosen diplomatic leader, I will not allow our nation's font service industry to be overtaken by foreign competitors.
The choice of Times New Roman as the preferred font for official communications is a natural one, as Times New Roman has numerous characteristics evocative of leadership, consistency, and empire.
Roman: Evokes the Roman Empire, the greatest world empire and the one we must focus on emulating in or continued quest for international supremacy.
New Roman: The phrase implies a Roman Empire that is even better than the previous Roman Empire, because it is New.
Times New Roman: A reference to multiplication, Times immediately makes the font more powerful and decisive. It is not Plus New Roman, suggesting mere addition, but Times New Roman, demonstrating that the official document being read has been multiplied by the New Roman Empire. Multiplied numbers are much greater than added numbers, and multiplying any number by New Roman results in a number much greater and important-sounding than the number itself.
By contrast, Calibri is a weak font that smacks of diversity.
It sounds ethnic. Whereas Times New Roman evokes Rome, "Calibri" merely sounds Italian. My mother warned me early in life not to trust anyone whose last name ended in a vowel, and I have never been steered wrong by that wisdom. Times New Roman does not end in a vowel: That alone makes it superior to ethnic-sounding fonts like Helvetica, and Cambria, and Calibri.
It sounds like a brand name. As an experiment, on my last visit to the White House I asked everyone I met to tell me what they thought a "Calibri" was. Not one believed it to be a font. It was guessed to be a brand of bottled water, a type of car, or a brand of pasta. By far the most common guess is that Calibri was a new drug, either an allergy medicine or a cure for erectile dysfunction.
This is embarrassing. We do not want our diplomatic documents to use a font that sounds like a drug. Can you imagine the commercials a drug like that would have? "Side effects include gout, sudden onset exploding, and DEI," the announcer might say.
It is not pointy enough. While Times New Roman has many sharp corners and extra doo-dads, called "serifs," Calibri is much less pointy. It is not a font that evokes American domination. Our nation is one of warfighters. We embrace sharp corners and jagged lines. Making America Great Again is not about being smooth, it is about being pointy and needlessly ornate. Our trucks are more pointy. Our diplomacy is more pointy. Our fonts should be more pointy. We are hard-edged men who put serifs on our trucks, and our office walls, and in our diplomatic letters.
Most of all, we do not want a font that is easy to read. My predecessor believed that switching to an easier to read font would boost productivity, especially for staffers who do not like pointy fonts. I believe these staffers are weak and should be culled.
Productivity is anathema to our mission as diplomats, and it does not matter whether our letters are easy to read or hard to read because we should be writing nothing to begin with. I myself am forbidden from sending any official communications: If I want to have a diplomatic opinion, I ask Stephen Miller whether I can have it and Stephen Miller Who Is A Great Man, Possibly The Greatest Man America Has Ever Produced Except For Donald Trump Himself, writes it down for me.
As previous staff memos have repeatedly explained, anyone inside the State Department who is caught writing an official communication will be terminated immediately. It makes not even a shred of difference what our department's font policies are, because none of you are allowed to put anything in writing to begin with.
— Secretary Marco Rubio
SM:mr
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