From MAHA to TACO—A Guide to the Acronyms of Trump's Second Term
You may be familiar with POTUS (President of the United States), MAGA (Make America Great Again), and GOP (Grand Old Party), but there's a new acronym that President Donald Trump isn't a fan of.
Short for 'Trump Always Chickens Out,' Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong coined the phrase shortened as 'TACO' to describe the President's pattern of making major disruptive policy moves, such as levying hefty tariffs on effectively every country in the world, before reversing course after the moves cause panic and economic shock.
The shorthand, which has been picked up by others, has clearly ruffled Trump's feathers.
'Don't ever say what you said, that's a nasty question,' Trump shot back when a reporter asked him about 'TACO' on Wednesday. 'To me that's the nastiest question.'
'You call that chickening out?' Trump said. 'It's called negotiation,' adding that he 'usually [has] the opposite problem—they say, 'you're too tough!''
Trump's apparent sensitivity will likely only ensure the acronym's longevity among critics. 'I want to be famous for my dumb joke, definitely, but I also don't want the President to ruin the U.S. economy," Armstrong told Axios. 'And so I'd like to have both of those things, if at all possible.'
But TACO isn't the only acronym to take off in Trump's second term. Here's a guide to some of the others to know.
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)
'DEI is DOA,' Trump's son Don Jr. posted on X in March, referencing the medical acronym for 'dead on arrival.' It's a common refrain among Republicans and supporters of the President's push to dismantle diversity-related policies across the federal government and private sector. Whereas Trump's first-term Administration focused most of its attacks on 'CRT' (Critical Race Theory), his 2024 campaign and current Administration have made 'DEI' a main target and scapegoat.
DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency)
What started in the 2010s as a nickname for an internet-viral shiba inu and morphed into a ' meme coin ' became an official initialism in November when then-President-elect Trump announced the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk. The initiative, aimed at slashing federal spending, has overseen mass layoffs and sweeping cuts to government programs in the early months of Trump's second term.
Musk, who announced on Wednesday that he is exiting the Trump Administration, has long hyped up the Doge meme, including naming a SpaceX satellite ' DOGE-1,' and boosted the cryptocurrency, including when he changed the then-Twitter logo to the dog-image meme.
FAFO (F-ck Around, Find Out)
Amid a dispute over deportations with Colombia's President Gustavo Petro in January, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform an AI-generated image of himself wearing a fedora with the letters FAFO in red on a sign next to him. 'This is awesome,' Musk said, resharing the image on X. Trump had previously reshared a post by right-wing internet troll that said '5 days until FAFO' alongside an image of Trump, on Jan. 15, five days before Trump's second-term inauguration.
The acronym, which stands for 'f-ck around, find out,' has been adopted 'as a slogan' by far-right groups, according to Merriam Webster, but is also widely used across the ideological spectrum 'as an expression of schadenfreude' about someone receiving negative consequences for their actions. The Times of London dubbed it ' Fafo diplomacy ' when Trump pressured Colombia to quickly reverse its opposition to accepting deportation flights after Trump threatened to hike tariffs on the nation's exports.
MAHA (Make America Healthy Again)
MAHA is a spin on Trump's tried-and-tested slogan 'Make America Great Again'—only with a focus on health. It took off in 2024 after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. —known for his fringe and sometimes disinformation-based views on health including vaccine skepticism —suspended his presidential campaign and threw his support behind Donald Trump. Trump nominated Kennedy to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Kennedy has since continued to use the slogan for government initiatives.
TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome)
'Are you or your loved ones suffering from illnesses such as TDS, also known as Trump Derangement Syndrome?' begins a satirical ad released by Kennedy's former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, in late August, days after Kennedy suspended his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. (Trump even promoted the video on his Truth Social platform.)
'It's a horrible, horrible terminal disease. It destroys the mind before the body, but the body eventually goes,' Trump said of TDS at a Moms for Liberty event in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2024.
While the phrase originated during Trump's first presidential campaign in 2016, TDS has become an increasingly popular diagnosis Trump and his supporters like to give his critics.
Five Republican state senators in Minnesota introduced a bill in March to codify TDS and categorize 'verbal expressions of intense hostility toward' Trump as a mental illness. The bill defines TDS as 'the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies' of Trump. It also lists symptoms as 'Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior.'
'This is possibly the worst bill in Minnesota history,' Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, a Democrat, said. 'If it is meant as a joke, it is a waste of staff time and taxpayer resources that trivializes serious mental health issues. If the authors are serious, it is an affront to free speech and an expression of a dangerous level of loyalty to an authoritarian president.'
Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio, on May 15 also introduced a bill in Congress to direct the National Institutes of Health to study TDS. 'Instead of funding ludicrous studies such as giving methamphetamine to cats or teaching monkeys to gamble for their drinking water,' he said, 'the NIH should use that funding to research issues that are relevant to the real world.'
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