Zeeshan Aleem writes for MSNBC about a misguided Democratic strategy for opposing Donald Trump.
Democrats are trying to make “TACO” — or “Trump always chickens out”— a new political slogan to get under the president’s skin. But it is not as clever a quip as they think it is, and it creates a perverse incentive for Trump to push the red buttons they don’t want him to push.
Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong coined the term “TACO” trade last month to describe how the president, in the face of market pressure, constantly backs off the biggest tariffs he slaps on other countries. But the term really took off last week after Trump responded angrily to a question from a reporter about what he thought of the term. “Don’t ever say what you said,” he warned the reporter, after a rambling explanation of why he believes he does not, in fact, chicken out. “That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question.”
Since then Democratic lawmakers and staffers have been trying to make TACO a thing. The Democratic National Committee handed out free tacos from a truck emblazoned with the term and an image of Trump in a chicken suit near the Republican National Committee’s headquarters in Washington this week. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., posted a photo of an unappetizing taco lunch on BlueSky and wrote, “It’s TACO Tuesday on Capitol Hill! I hear the White House celebrates every day.” …
… [I]t is straightforwardly wrongheaded as a political slogan. Why on Earth would Democrats dare Trump to follow through on his most extreme tariff threats? If this slogan were to really work, if it really did burrow its way into the deepest parts of Trump’s brain, then it would nudge him and his allies to cling more tightly to the most extreme versions of Trump’s bad economic policies. We’ve been fortunate to have been spared from such extremes — so far. But trade negotiations are still ongoing, and goading him to ignore potentially economy-saving pressure campaigns is foolish.
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Author: Mitch Kokai
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