When the State Department changed the fonts on official documents to Calibri in 2023, it had a good reason. As The New York Times reported, the move “was intended to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and for people using assistive technologies, like screen readers.”
This week, the department undid that move. Reuters reported:
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.
The Times report on this added that for the nation’s chief diplomat, who issued an “Action Request” memo to U.S. posts around the world, reversing course on font selection was part of “a push to stamp out diversity efforts and … return to tradition.”
Put another way, improving accessibility for readers with disabilities was, you know, woke.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University professor who studies authoritarian rulers, noted soon after that Italy’s Benito Mussolini “had this level of micro-managing, including which fonts could be used in newspapers.”
Indeed, after seeing these reports this week, it was hard not to wonder how in the world the Florida Republican managed to find time to make this a priority. When it comes to high-profile and powerful federal officials, Rubio is simultaneously wearing more hats than anyone in modern American history, serving as the secretary of state, the White House national security adviser, the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the acting archivist for the National Archives.
The last time I checked, he’s also playing a direct role in trying to negotiate an end to the deadliest war in Europe since World War II, while moving the U.S. closer to possible military intervention in Venezuela.
And this is the moment that the top diplomat for the world’s preeminent superpower decided to issue an international declaration to U.S. embassies, missions and outposts about … a typeface? As ridiculous as this might seem, it’s part of a pattern in which White House Cabinet officials can’t seem to shake their interest in distractions and trivialities. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has devoted time to helping air travelers who want to do pull-ups at airports. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has invested a bizarre amount of interest in paintings, library books and grooming standards. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has embraced camera-ready tactics and performative politics to an almost cartoonish degree. And then, of course, there’s Donald Trump himself, who appears far more interested in ballrooms and bathrooms than governance. As Rubio joins the club and turns his attention to fonts, it’s hard not to wonder: Don’t these guys have more important things to do?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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