Donald Trump signed an executive order today making English the official language of the US. But it was surprisingly diffident:
Nothing in this order, however, requires or directs any change in the services provided by any agency. Agency heads should make decisions as they deem necessary to fulfill their respective agencies’ mission and efficiently provide Government services to the American people. Agency heads are not required to amend, remove, or otherwise stop production of documents, products, or other services prepared or offered in languages other than English.
Trump EOs tend to be full of blustery, maximalist language, but not this time. Trump goes out of his way to say that the EO doesn't require any change. In fact, agencies should actively keep doing whatever they're doing.
Perhaps surprisingly, I'm generally in favor of this EO. In the US it's mostly symbolic and doesn't really matter much, but in broader terms it's always struck me that having multiple languages is bad for a country. I don't mean this in any kind of chauvinistic or exclusionary sense. It's just that in practical terms language is a powerful binding force for a nation, and likewise, having multiple languages can be a powerful disruptive force. Better to take no chances if you can.
I can’t wait for them to demand that call systems only offer English and Home Depot remove all the Spanish signage.
It may have no official impact now, but it clearly is designed to lay the groundwork for future actions. We should know how this all works by now.
I think one of the reasons why Kevin is generally (though not entirely) dismissive regarding Leftist extremism is because he does not actually seem to know a lot about it.
That’s true for many other Liberals as well. Our own publications play down the problem, and then we ignore whatever the “other side” says.
But in this case, Kevin gives it away. This statement might have gotten him kicked out of some of my grad school classes on composition pedagogy, yet he seems blithely unaware of the cancellation risks he is taking here:
“In the US it's mostly symbolic and doesn't really matter much, but in broader terms it's always struck me that having multiple languages is bad for a country. I don't mean this in any kind of chauvinistic or exclusionary sense. It's just that in practical terms language is a powerful binding force for a nation, and likewise, having multiple languages can be a powerful disruptive force.”
Most people have no idea how radicalized the field of composition has become. But suffice to say that, among what passes as modern composition scholarship, few concepts are considered as racist, narrow-minded, or just downright evil as that of a national, or standard, language.
Why, after all, do you think Trump signed this executive order in the first place? Well, honestly, I’m not entirely sure. But I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the people behind it were responding to the leftist radicalization marshaling English teachers against the English language.
One comp class I had was all about the assessment of student writing. Or, more accurately, the NON-assessment of student writing. Since any and all language standards are now considered inherently bigoted, Comp teachers are now trained to not provide students with any grades or feedback at all. Whatever students write or express should just be treated as authentic. So we should just give them credit no matter what they hand in.
I think that’s nonsense, and I don’t hesitate to say as much. I also refuse to state my commitment to equity on any cover letter that I send in with a job application for a teacher position. If someone wants to argue in favor of equity, that’s fine. But screening all incoming faculty for ideological conformity will inevitably destroy academia, and I will not contribute to that self-destruction.
Perhaps it’s not surprising then, that I haven’t been hired for a teaching position. People like me who believe that students should be challenged, graded, and assessed without reference to their immutable traits aren’t just rejected by academia: we are in fact condemned as evil. My only hope of landing a teaching job is, probably, by moving to a red state.
So add this new executive order to the growing list of Trump executive actions that I approve of. I also agree with his order on ending the discriminatory system known as DEI and his order protecting women’s spaces from trans rights extremism. All in all, there’s a lot to be happy about in the first month of his second term.
But as best I can tell, the Left remains intent on dying on those hills. Unfortunately, it’s also intent on taking the Dem party down with it. So I think we all need to brace ourselves for a decade of Republican presidents.
Just a by-the-way, hum-de-hum: An FCC commissioner just tweeted out that in line with the EO, he'll speak only English where official FCC business is concerned and urges his fellow commissioners to do likewise: https://bsky.app/profile/mrose.ink/post/3ljiqnttecc23
One of the reasons he gives this is that he's an immigrant himself, and as he says, "learning English is key to assimilation, and I urge all immigrants to do the same."
Spoiler alert: His name is Nathan Simington. He immigrated from Canada.
Encouraging stupid servile performative shit like this is one of the reasons you don't try to name an "official language" in a manner that has no authority to do it.
"having multiple languages can be a powerful disruptive force"
Yes, I'm sure that's why Switzerland has been so notoriously dysfunctional for 180 years.