Marco Rubio Got Triggered by a Font

Summary

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.

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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.

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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)

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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)

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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

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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.

Transcript

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[Hannah Yost]

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[JVL]

Hello everyone. I am JVL here with my Bulwark colleague Hannah Yost and you are here for Bulwark Font Talk. Graphic design nerds of the world unite. Because yesterday Marco Rubio announced that the Department of State is making a bold change. They are done with the Calibri font and they're going pure Times New Roman. And design nerds all across the country are now fighting about this. Hannah, let's start. Let's start with a baseline T take here. Where are you on Kolibri vs Times New Ramen?

[Hannah Yost]

Ben, our other senior editor who's now back, both agree that this is like the classic case of the Trump administration having the wrong process but the right outcome. So yeah, 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 should not be set in a kind of more juvenile looking typeface. It should be in something sophisticated like Times New Roman. Something with a serif that, you know, conveys professionalism and so on and so forth.

[JVL]

So Anthony Blinken made this change of going from Times New Roman to Calibri. It was. I don't know if this is the only reason, but I think the, the you know, one of the reasons given was that it came out of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which sounds like black people, but in this case really meant people who had eye trouble and like dyslexia. This is again unclear if the Republicans just think by saying woke, everybody assumes that means brown people. This is really just talking about people with eyesight problems before Blinken had made his change for 20 years. You go back before that they had been using Courier New because it looks typewriter.

[Hannah Yost]

So there was.

[JVL]

I am sorry, that is, that is an absolute insomnia. The idea that, that the U.S. government was using Courier New.

[Hannah Yost]

And if you go back and if you look in like the vaults, like the vaulted files, like you can see it, it looks, it's the pantomiming of being still on a typewriter.

[JVL]

This is like high school freshmen trying to figure out how this is supposed to be a four page paper, but I've only written three paragraphs. What am I? Courier new three point spacing and Courier new 16 point font. Hey, look at that. It's six pages.

[Hannah Yost]

It is legible though.

[JVL]

It's horrible. It's such a hideous font. Such a hideous font. I want to talk about something else here because the, the other reason that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who, you know, it's funny, they often say that being in the presidency ages a man and, and Donald Trump has been on the whole remarkably non aged by the presidency. I mean, you know, he's, he's old now, but when he came out of the first term, it wasn't like the weight of the world weighed on him or something.

[Hannah Yost]

Right, right, right.

[JVL]

Marco Rubio is the first Secretary of State in my memory have aged by 18 years.

[Hannah Yost]

Over the course he's doing like 30 jobs. He's juggling every department under the sun.

[JVL]

He said that the other rationale for making this change, aside from me anti woke was that Times New Roman would quote, restore decorum and professionalism to the department's written work. I was not aware that decorum and professionalism were things that this administration were concerned with. I would direct you to the currently the pinned tweet on Truth Social of the President of the United States. The United States government's Trump Gold card is here today. A direct path to citizenship for all qualified invented people. So exciting. That's, that's great.

[Hannah Yost]

I'll do you one better. Did you see the New York Times reported that part of Rubio's justification was that the switch to Kolibri had been wasteful. Which if you think about it is just patently hilarious because what is, what is changing the Department of Justice to the Department of War, if not grossly wasteful? And it's the same kind of aesthetic change in a not great direction.

[JVL]

This is again, we have a guy who just talked about Arnold Palmer's junk as he was campaigning to be president. He took showers with the other pros. They came out of there, they said, oh my God, that's unbelievable. Marco. Ruby's like, actually, we must have decorum and norms.

[Hannah Yost]

Indeed.

[JVL]

What a, what a bunch of garbage human beings they are. So I, I submit to you, Hannah, that neither of these are the best fonts.

[Hannah Yost]

I mean, they both have their, they have their pros and cons. It's funny. Our sure, if. If the Trump administration really wanted to commit to the bit of returning to. How did Rubio phrase it? Echoing Trump's calls for classical style in federal architecture, Mr. Rubio's order cited the origins of stereotypefaces in Roman antiquity. And Chris, our video head, made the great joke that if they really, really wanted to drive this home, they should commit to going full Trajan, which so the origin, the origin of Roman square capitals comes from the Trajan column. The inscription at the bottom is set in this beautiful carved marble serif typeface. And from there we get the serifs that we all know and love and use day in, day out. But that would be, if you really wanted to commit to return aesthetics would be. Would be traen. I would not, I personally would not recommend that.

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[JVL]

So do you have strong font preferences for yourself? Because this may not surprise you, but I do.

[Hannah Yost]

Well, what are yours?

[JVL]

So people who work with words, I think, feel really strongly about this because it is the equivalent of a guy who works in construction having a preference for like Milwaukee tools over DeWalt or something like that. And I have a very strong preference for Arial. When I am sitting down to edit 5,000 words of somebody's piece, I want it on Arial. I want it on 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. When I'm going to be staring at the screen and at the same words basically for like an hour or two hours on end. And I'm happy when it's just a question of consuming content. You know, if I'm just sitting back to read, I can roll with most of the things you give me. I can roll with time, Zoom, Roman. I could roll with Calibri if you wanted to. I could roll with Helvetica, whatever. For working. For working with words I want. Ariel, how about you?

[Hannah Yost]

Have you tried Universe?

[JVL]

I haven't. What is Universe?

[Hannah Yost]

So the Swiss had basically this battle between Zurich and Basel and one camp was Helvetica all the way and the other camp was Universe. And there a great quote came out of this where that Helvetica was the blue jeans of typefaces, but Universe was the tuxedo. And they look identical. Like there is, like there is very little differences. But Universe is more sophisticated for like the tiny little.

[JVL]

Is it the kerning is the difference, the spacing between them? Because that's the other people don't realize the font isn't just the letters themselves in the form of them, it's the space between them.

[Hannah Yost]

I would love for you to give Universe a try. You can tell us if you. If it.

[JVL]

I mean, maybe I don't like change. Maybe you've noticed that about me, Hannah. I don't like change one bit. So you don't have a favorite font that you like to work in.

[Hannah Yost]

So I like all poets, I am partial to Garamond. It is the poet's choice.

[JVL]

Why I didn't. I never knew that.

[Hannah Yost]

So beautiful. Have you not seen, have you not worked with it? It's so delicate. It's thinner. It's smaller and fun. Back to the politics. Back in 2014, a high schooler did a science project or something where he looked at government wasteful spending and he found that the government could save something like $14 billion on ink. He made this really strong argument that ink is more expensive than French perfume. True. And he found that the government could save all this money on ink by simply switching from Times Newman to Garamond. And it's kind of like a trick because Garamond is not like it wouldn't actually save you ink because you're, you're printing it smaller. Like you'd have to. In order to keep the same level of legibility and accessibility to the people that you are supposedly corresponding with or giving this information to. You would need to still keep it within the same size and keep it so that you can read it. And he wouldn't actually end up saving them much ink. But it is funny. It is a smaller, more delicate typeface.

[JVL]

It is. I'm looking at it right now. And especially the vertical strokes are really, really, as you say, delicately. It's a pretty fun words. A little words. The letters a little too close together for me. I appreciate a little bit more spacing. I'd like to let them breathe. Like, let those letters breathe.

[Hannah Yost]

I've also become more partial to all of the old style typefaces. If you go into Apple Books, I think Iowan is the old style that is the standard typeface. And it is such a delight to read. Like, it just scans so nicely. So old style, old style. I am partial personally to old styles in general and like transitional phases. So Ariel and Helvetic are in the modern families. I, I personally, I love a serif. I am, I am partial to the serif.

[JVL]

Interesting. So I, I am interested in the idea of fonts as accessibility. So there is, there is a font called Open Dyslexic which supposedly helps people with dyslexia read. If you go and look at it, I think it's available for download for free. So if you have Dyslex, it's a thing that you can just use to make your life better. I was looking actually at a new. A new Kindle Scribe the other day. And the new Kindle Scribe, the texture of the screen is supposedly done in Such a way as to, again, help with. Especially with people with dyslexia, which is just fantastic. There are all these little things that just contribute to the way we uptake information and the way our brains work. I don't think of it as woke. I think it is kind of amazing. I feel like it should be all be celebrated. I guess I don't understand the antipathy towards the idea of.

[Hannah Yost]

It's like every person who has a stroller should thank the ADA and all kinds of handicap compliance because they make sidewalks accessible. Like, accessibility is not just for the disabled. It's not just for people who are actively in need of it. It helps all of us because, like, all of us are, like, one bad day away from, you know, tragedy striking and, like, facing challenges that we're not familiar with. Look, I. I recently just got new glasses, and the doctor, she, like, kind of upsold me a bit, but she was like, they're anti fatigue. No, they're. They're baby bifocals. She was basically like, you're old now. Very great. But you know what? They. They help a ton. And I'm like, does that make my glasses woke up? I don't think so. It's just. It's just.

[JVL]

Yeah, well, you know what? You should. You should not wear them to protest woke. And if it means you can't see, then that's a small price to pay for freedom, Hannah.

[Hannah Yost]

Right?

[JVL]

I. I mean, be a patriot. Ditch your glasses. God, what a world we live in with these absolute cretins trying to politicize everything. So there we go. We have. 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.

[Hannah Yost]

It'll be done with more decor on them for sure.

[JVL]

Yeah, 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.