It’s possible you’ll be conversant in POTUS (President of the USA), MAGA (Make America Nice Once more), and GOP (Grand Previous Occasion), however there’s a brand new acronym that President Donald Trump isn’t a fan of.
Brief for “Trump At all times Chickens Out,” Monetary Occasions columnist Robert Armstrong coined the phrase shortened as “TACO” to explain the President’s sample of constructing main disruptive coverage strikes, corresponding to levying hefty tariffs on successfully each nation on this planet, earlier than reversing course after the strikes trigger panic and financial shock.
The shorthand, which has been picked up by others, has clearly ruffled Trump’s feathers.
“Don’t ever say what you mentioned, that’s a nasty query,” Trump shot again when a reporter requested him about “TACO” on Wednesday. “To me that’s the nastiest query.”
“You name that retreating?” Trump mentioned. “It’s known as negotiation,” including that he “often [has] the alternative drawback—they are saying, ‘you’re too powerful!’”
Trump’s obvious sensitivity will doubtless solely make sure the acronym’s longevity amongst critics. “I need to be well-known for my dumb joke, undoubtedly, however I additionally don’t need the President to damage the U.S. financial system,” Armstrong advised Axios. “And so I’d prefer to have each of these issues, if in any respect potential.”
However TACO isn’t the one acronym to take off in Trump’s second time period. Right here’s a information to a few of the others to know.
DEI (Range, Fairness, and Inclusion)
“DEI is DOA,” Trump’s son Don Jr. posted on X in March, referencing the medical acronym for “useless on arrival.” It’s a typical chorus amongst Republicans and supporters of the President’s push to dismantle diversity-related insurance policies throughout the federal authorities and personal sector. Whereas Trump’s first-term Administration centered most of its assaults on “CRT” (Vital Race Concept), his 2024 marketing campaign and present Administration have made “DEI” a principal goal and scapegoat.
DOGE (Division of Authorities Effectivity)
What began within the 2010s as a nickname for an internet-viral shiba inu and morphed right into a “meme coin” turned an official initialism in November when then-President-elect Trump introduced the Division of Authorities Effectivity, an advisory physique spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk. The initiative, aimed toward slashing federal spending, has overseen mass layoffs and sweeping cuts to authorities packages within the early months of Trump’s second time period.
Musk, who introduced on Wednesday that he’s exiting the Trump Administration, has lengthy overvalued the Doge meme, together with naming a SpaceX satellite tv for pc “DOGE-1,” and boosted the cryptocurrency, together with when he modified the then-Twitter emblem to the dog-image meme.
FAFO (F-ck Round, Discover Out)
Amid a dispute over deportations with Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro in January, Trump posted on his Fact Social platform an AI-generated picture of himself sporting a fedora with the letters FAFO in purple on an indication subsequent to him. “That is superior,” Musk mentioned, resharing the picture on X. Trump had beforehand reshared a submit by right-wing web troll that mentioned “5 days till FAFO” alongside a picture of Trump, on Jan. 15, 5 days earlier than Trump’s second-term inauguration.
The acronym, which stands for “f-ck round, discover out,” has been adopted “as a slogan” by far-right teams, in line with Merriam Webster, however can also be extensively used throughout the ideological spectrum “as an expression of schadenfreude” about somebody receiving unfavourable penalties for his or her actions. The Occasions of London dubbed it “Fafo diplomacy” when Trump pressured Colombia to rapidly reverse its opposition to accepting deportation flights after Trump threatened to hike tariffs on the nation’s exports.
TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome)
“Are you or your family members affected by diseases corresponding to TDS, also referred to as Trump Derangement Syndrome?” begins a satirical advert launched by Kennedy’s former operating mate, Nicole Shanahan, in late August, days after Kennedy suspended his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. (Trump even promoted the video on his Fact Social platform.)
“It’s a horrible, horrible terminal illness. It destroys the thoughts earlier than the physique, however the physique ultimately goes,” Trump mentioned of TDS at a Mothers for Liberty occasion in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2024.
Whereas the phrase originated throughout Trump’s first presidential marketing campaign in 2016, TDS has develop into an more and more well-liked analysis Trump and his supporters like to provide his critics.
5 Republican state senators in Minnesota launched a invoice in March to codify TDS and categorize “verbal expressions of intense hostility towards” Trump as a psychological sickness. The invoice defines TDS as “the acute onset of paranoia in in any other case regular individuals that’s in response to the insurance policies and presidencies” of Trump. It additionally lists signs as “Trump-induced common hysteria, which produces an incapability to tell apart between authentic coverage variations and indicators of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump’s conduct.”
“That is probably the worst invoice in Minnesota historical past,” Minnesota Senate Majority Chief Erin Murphy, a Democrat, mentioned. “Whether it is meant as a joke, it’s a waste of employees time and taxpayer sources that trivializes critical psychological well being points. If the authors are critical, it’s an affront to free speech and an expression of a harmful stage of loyalty to an authoritarian president.”
Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio, on Could 15 additionally launched a invoice in Congress to direct the Nationwide Institutes of Well being to review TDS. “As an alternative of funding ludicrous research corresponding to giving methamphetamine to cats or instructing monkeys to gamble for his or her consuming water,” he mentioned, “the NIH ought to use that funding to analysis points which might be related to the actual world.”
