From tacos to penguins, Trump finds punchy slogans can also be weapons

USA Today

3 days ago

From tacos to penguins, Trump finds punchy slogans can also be weapons Trump simplifies complex political debates with punchy slogans but the strategy can also work against him when a critical phrase catches fire
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What is 'TACO trade,' a new phrase angering President Trump?
'TACO trade' is a jab at President Donald Trump's propensity to impose or threaten tariffs and later back off.
When a clever insult sticks, it 'is like bringing a dissertation to a meme fight,' according to Meghan Tisinger, an expert in crisis management.
Coining a phrase like 'one big beautiful bill' helps sell complex legislation, according to marketing expert John Rosen, but a critical phrase can also become an albatross around the target's neck.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's punchiest political phrases are often the most successful, such as 'one big beautiful bill' to sell his legislative priorities, 'radical left lunatics' to brand his opponents and, of course, the winning MAGA campaign slogan to 'make America great again.'
But snappy summaries can also be used to attack complex policies, including threatening Trump's deal-making reputation. After Trump imposed tariffs on uninhabited Antarctic islands, critics adopted seized penguins as protest mascots. Separately, a newspaper columnist coined the acronym TACO, for 'Trump always chickens out," to summarize his on-and-off tariffs during trade negotiations.
'Once a clever insult sticks, trying to fight it with facts is like bringing a dissertation to a meme fight,' Meghan Tisinger, managing director for Leidar USA, a crisis-communications and reputation management firm, told USA TODAY. 'The real danger is when your opponent defines your brand in nine characters before you do in 800 words.'
More: Trump erupts when asked about 'TACO trade' ― a new nickname mocking his tariff approach
Charlie Skuba, faculty emeritus at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, compared Trump's red MAGA hat with iconic imagery such as former President George W. Bush seen with a bullhorn or Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis in a tank.
'It's about crystalizing something fuzzy or helping people remember and associate an idea,' Skuba said in an interview. Trump "thinks like a social media marketer. He thinks in little memes and short phrases that work for reduced attention spans.'
Trump brands adversaries through nicknames
Trump is no stranger to the catchphrase. He routinely adopted nicknames for political rivals such as "little Marco" for his 2016 Republican primary rival Marco Rubio, 'sleepy Joe' Biden, for the former president, or California Gov. Gavin 'Newscum' instead of NewsomThe advantage, according to marketing experts, is to convey complex policies in an easily summarized phrase. When the House debated an 1,100-page package of Trump's priorities to cut taxes and federal spending, lawmakers formally adopted his selling phrase 'one big beautiful bill' as the title.
John Rosen, an adjunct professor of economics and marketing at the University of New Haven, compared the strategy to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 'New Deal,' Harry Truman's 'Fair Deal' and John F. Kennedy's 'New Frontier.'
'You need shorthand to talk about these kinds of things,' Rosen told USA TODAY. 'There's only one bill, as opposed to a hundred or a thousand new bills that probably resonate with Trump's base, who think in general that everybody in Washington is just spending money and wasting time writing a bunch of bills.'
Trump critics grapple with phrasing to cement opposition
Democrats have scrambled for a winning message since losing the White House and control of both chambers of Congress to Trump and his fellow Republicans in November.
For example, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., parried Trump's phrasing about the House legislation by calling it 'one ugly bill' and a 'partisan monstrosity' that he argued would benefit billionaires and hurt the working class.
When Trump announced worldwide tariffs April 2, which he characterized as 'liberation day,' he slapped a 10% duty imports from the Australian territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic.
More: Town halls, f-bombs and Elon Musk: How Democrats are waging a new messaging war
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's response April 2 was direct but not catchy.
'This is not the act of a friend,' he said. 'We will not join a race to the bottom that leads to higher prices and slower growth.'
But others sought new horizons. Critics seized on penguins for a protest image about the islands, which are otherwise uninhabited.
The advocacy group Penguins International waddled into the spotlight with a light-hearted protest under the banner: 'Protest march of the penguins.'
Skuba, who previously worked at the ad agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, which created the slogans 'Where's the beef' for Wendy's and 'Take a bite out of crime' for McGruff the Crime Dog, said the penguins didn't gain widespread attention - perhaps for lack of attention.
Plenty of policy experts in Washington have great ideas but not the audience or personality to have them catch on, Skuba said. Former first lady Nancy Reagan's 'Just say no' campaign against drug use remains memorable, he said. But Biden's 'Build back better' campaign never really caught fire, he said.
Slogans offer bite-size summaries of complex policies
One rebuttal gaining traction is the acronym TACO, for 'Trump always chickens out,' a phrase coined by a Financial Times columnist, Robert Armstrong.
The phrase initially referred to Trump imposing stiff tariffs on countries including China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union before easing them for negotiations on trade deals. Trump contends tariffs will bring restore manufacturing jobs in the U.S. while raising billions of dollars.
But critics of the tariffs lampooned the president with memes of tacos and chickens. The Democratic National Committee parked a taco truck for lunch − with a picture of Trump in a chicken suit on the side − in front of the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C., on June 3. Video of a Trump appearance on 'Saturday Night Live' in 2004 hawking a fictitious chicken shop has been making the social-media rounds.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-California, who helped prosecute Trump's second impeachment in 2021, didn't need words to oppose the tariffs. He just posted a TikTok video June 2 of himself eating a taco after someone asks about Trump's tariffs, which caught the attention of Fox News.
'I don't know what this Fox News lady ate for lunch, but she's talking about what I had,' Swalwell said on social media.
One widely circulated – and fake – picture featured former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden eating tacos and wearing shirts that said, "Let's go taco." The message echoed the chant "Let's go Brandon," the phrase that became its own meme after a reporter mischaracterized from a profanity hostile to Biden shouted by fans at a NASCAR race in October 2021.
Trump seemed to understand the damage a memorable phrase could do. Asked about May 28 it in the Oval Office, Trump called the question 'nasty.' He argued that imposing high tariffs brought foreign leaders to the negotiating table.
"Oh, isn't that nice. I chicken out? I've never heard that," Trump said. 'It's called negotiation.'
Not about who's right, but 'first, fast and clear': expert
Marketing experts said the stakes for a well-turned phrase can be high, but that it's not always clear what will be a winning message.
Obama was happy to have the Affordable Care Act expanding access to health insurance become known as Obamacare, Rosen said.
But Bidenomics, the shorthand for Biden's economic policies, 'became an albatross around his neck' when inflation flourished in 2024, Rosen said.
'In moments of crisis or conflict, few things travel faster or hit harder than a sharp, we'll-crafted slogan,' Tisinger said. 'It's not about who's right, but who's first, fast and clear.'