Bulwark Takes: "Marco Rubio Got Triggered by a Font"

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Date: December 12, 2025
Host: JVL
Guest: Hannah Yost
Main Theme:
A wry and surprisingly passionate deep-dive into the U.S. State Department’s decision to abandon Calibri for Times New Roman, how font choices become culture-war flashpoints, and what this says about larger issues of accessibility, aesthetics, and government priorities.

Episode Overview

JVL and Hannah Yost dissect the news that Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered Times New Roman to replace Calibri as the State Department's official font, sparking debate among designers and political commentators alike. The conversation blends design geekery with scathing political critique, blending humor and genuine insight into how even fonts get swept into the tides of U.S. politics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Font Switch: History and “Wokeness” (01:15–06:11)

• Background:

  • Marco Rubio reversed a prior move by Anthony Blinken (under Biden) to Calibri, returning the State Department to Times New Roman.
  • The “woke” backlash is largely a GOP narrative; the original change to Calibri was made for accessibility (easier for people with vision issues and dyslexia), not diversity per se.

• Design Nerd Out:

  • Hannah is firmly anti-Calibri:
    “We should kill Kolibri. Absolutely. But it has a reputation of being soft and modern. It does not read poor professional. It reads as kid book.” (01:57 – Hannah)
  • Historic context: Before Times New Roman and Calibri, the department used Courier New, a font characterized as the “pantomiming of being still on a typewriter.” (03:32 – Hannah)
  • JVL ridicules Courier New as the teenager’s cheat-sheet for expanding papers:
    “Courier new three point spacing and Courier new 16 point font. Hey, look at that. It's six pages.” (03:40 – JVL)

• Political Optics:

  • JVL lampoons the administration for claiming this is about “decorum and professionalism,” noting the contradiction with Trump-era behavior and rhetoric:
    “I was not aware that decorum and professionalism were things that this administration were concerned with. I would direct you to... the President of the United States’ pinned tweet on Truth Social.” (04:42 – JVL)
  • Wastefulness: Hannah notes the irony in Rubio calling the switch to Calibri “wasteful," considering other, larger changes:
    “What is changing the Department of Justice to the Department of War, if not grossly wasteful?... the same kind of aesthetic change in a not great direction.” (05:24 – Hannah)

2. Font Aesthetics and Political “Classics” (06:11–07:25)

• Return to Classical Aesthetics:
  • Rubio’s order invoked “Roman antiquity” as a design ideal, part of the administration’s broader nostalgia for pre-modern aesthetics.
  • Insider joke: If truly committed, they’d go all the way back to “Trajan”—the lettering of ancient Roman monuments:
    “If they really wanted to drive this home, they should commit to going full Trajan... would be Trajan. I personally would not recommend that.” (06:24 – Hannah)

3. Personal Font Preferences: The Office Culture War (08:47–12:36)

• “What’s your font?”:

  • JVL prefers Arial for editing, likening font preferences to tools for craftsmen:
    “People who work with words, I think, feel really strongly about this... I have a very strong preference for Arial... 12 point. And with the 1 1/2 spaces between lines and the automatic paragraph break, I just find Arial much easier to work with.” (08:56 – JVL)
  • Hannah plugs Univers, comparing the Helvetica/Univers rivalry to fashion:
    “Helvetica was the blue jeans of typefaces, but Universe was the tuxedo.” (10:10 – Hannah)

• Fonts and Poets:

  • Hannah is partial to Garamond:
    “Like all poets, I am partial to Garamond. It is the poet's choice. So beautiful... It's so delicate. It's thinner.” (11:02 – Hannah)
  • Fun historical tidbit: A high schooler once argued Garamond could save the government billions on ink—but the argument is misleading because it’s just a smaller font.

• Serif vs. Sans-serif:

  • Hannah loves “old style” serif fonts; JVL likes more spacing:
    “I've also become more partial to all of the old style typefaces... I am partial personally to old styles in general... I love a serif.” (12:36 – Hannah)

4. Fonts as Accessibility Tools, Not Culture War (13:06–14:59)

• Accessibility Not “Wokeness”:

  • Fonts like Open Dyslexic are designed to help people who struggle with reading:
    “There is a font called Open Dyslexic which supposedly helps people with dyslexia read. ... I don't think of it as woke. I think it is kind of amazing.” (13:06 – JVL)

• Universal Design:

  • Hannah asserts accessibility helps everyone, not just those with a recognized disability:
    “Accessibility is not just for the disabled. It helps all of us because, like, all of us are, like, one bad day away from, you know, tragedy.” (14:04 – Hannah)
  • Personal anecdote on “anti-fatigue” glasses—“does that make my glasses woke?”—emphasizes how silly it is to politicize inclusive design.

• Mockery of Outrage:

  • JVL (with trademark sarcasm):
    “You should not wear [your glasses] to protest woke. And if it means you can't see, then that's a small price to pay for freedom, Hannah.” (14:50 – JVL)

5. Conclusion: "Making America Great Again" by Font (15:10–15:33)

• Final Irony:

  • "We have moved back to the glorious pass. We've made America great again by going back to Times New Roman for official correspondence from the U.S. department of State. I guess that'll make it better when we take Vladimir Putin's side against Europe." (14:59 – JVL)

• Snarky Sendoff:

  • “It'll be done with more decor on them for sure.” (15:30 – Hannah)
  • “There’ll be serifs on it. So it'll be bad that America has switched sides, but it will be classy for sure. Good luck, America.” (15:33 – JVL)

Notable Quotes

• "We should kill Kolibri. Absolutely. But it has a reputation of being soft and modern. It does not read poor professional. It reads as kid book."
  – Hannah Yost (01:57)

• "Courier New three point spacing and Courier new 16 point font. Hey, look at that. It's six pages."
  – JVL (03:40)

• "I was not aware that decorum and professionalism were things that this administration were concerned with."
  – JVL (04:42)

• "Helvetica was the blue jeans of typefaces, but Universe was the tuxedo."
  – Hannah Yost (10:10)

• "Accessibility is not just for the disabled. ... It helps all of us because, like, all of us are, like, one bad day away from, you know, tragedy."
  – Hannah Yost (14:04)

• "There’ll be serifs on it. So it'll be bad that America has switched sides, but it will be classy for sure. Good luck, America."
  – JVL (15:33)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:15] — Episode theme intro, rapid font switch overview
• [03:22] — Courier New background, design jokes
• [04:42] — Satire on “decorum and professionalism”
• [05:24] — Mocking wastefulness claims
• [06:24] — “Trajan” and classical aesthetics tangents
• [08:47] — Personal font preferences, Arial/Univers debate
• [11:02] — Garamond, the poet’s font, and ink-saving myth
• [13:06] — Fonts and accessibility, Open Dyslexic
• [14:04] — Accessibility as a universal good
• [15:30] — Concluding sendoff, “serifs” as America’s last hope

Tone and Takeaways

With a blend of design-politics nerdiness and Bulwark’s biting wit, JVL and Hannah turn the font wars into a microcosm of American cultural battles: serious about good government and accessibility, irreverent toward performative “norms,” and always up for a font joke. For listeners, it’s a rapid-fire, clever, and surprisingly informative entry into the weird ways typography runs up against the machinery of politics.