Speaking The Language

Last week President Trump signed an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-executive-order-english-official-language/

"A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language," the executive order reads.

The order also states that "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."

I have always found it incredible that English had never been designated as the official language of the United States before now.

That is especially true when it is considered how many other countries in the world have done so.

For example, countries as diverse as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda. South Sudan and Belize all have designated English as an official language.

There are actually 57 other countries besides the United States that designate English as the (or an) official language.

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/map-countries-speak-english-guide-wonderful-world-english-ekise/

The United States has also been in a distinct minority in not having any official language.

The failure of the United States to do so is even more perplexing when U.S. law requires that in order to become a naturalized U.S. citizen it is required that an applicant must meet an English language proficiency requirement.

These are the requirements as listed in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Policy Manual.

There is an exemption to the language requirement but it is generally only available to those age 50 or over who have resided in the United States for many years.

For example, someone 50 years or older must have resided in the United States for at least 20 years to qualify for this exemption.

What sense does it make to require proficiency in English as a requirement for naturalized citizenship but it has not been the official language of the United States?

Just another instance of President Trump applying common sense to the issues surrounding us.

In looking at recent polling it appears that his common sense approach is speaking the language of the voters.

Atlas Intel was the most accurate pollster in the 2024 Presidential election.

They recently surveyed positive and negative opinions on a number of politicians.

Notice that Trump right now has a higher opinion score than Barack Obama.

Trump is +2. Obama is 0.

Every other Democrat is no better than -5.

Kamala Harris is -16, Gavin Newsom is -24, Joe Biden is -25 and Hillary Clinton is -29.

What is even more striking in the survey results is the positive opinion that J.D. Vance has developed over time with the American people.

You many recall that right after President Trump selected Vance to be his VP nominee the Democrats and mainstream media created a narrative to portray both Trump and J.D. as "weird".

https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harris-trump-vance-weird-c54d506d1f533ee7aa455f7b500322c5

As voters have gotten to know Vance they have determined that was nothing but fake news.

Voters who see Vance positively has improved by 22 points since July.

His net approval has improved from -13 to +3.

Voters are seeing nothing weird about J.D. Vance.

One thing that was weird was the fact that English was not the official language of the United States.

It is weird no more thanks to President Trump.