Gastronomy vs. Gaslighting: Why I’m Keeping the Score on the “TACO” Summer

(Jay)

As a writer, I’ve always believed that words are sacred. As a human being, I know for a fact that food is sacred. So, when Wall Street and the legacy media decided to spend the better part of 2025 turning a cultural staple into a political acronym for “cowardice,” I felt a deep, intellectual hesitation. I didn’t want to give it weight. I didn’t want to marinate our heritage in the toxic juices of the current administration. And I wasn’t the only one; I noticed people on Threads—other Mexicans, as well as Mexican-Americans, and even non-Mexicans or non-Latinos—speak out and defend our cultural heritage, particularly our gastronomy.

But as a documentarian, I have a duty. Discipline overrules hesitancy. We have to call balls and strikes because if we don’t keep the scorecard, they’ll tell us the game never happened.

The Pattern: The 2025 “Arsonist as Firefighter” Timeline

If you look back at the trail of breadcrumbs (or rather, discarded threats) from last year, the pattern is surgical. It wasn’t “negotiation,” as the 47th President claimed; it was a manufactured cycle of panic and “rescue.”

• May 2, 2025: The term is born. Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong coins the T.A.C.O. acronym (Trump Always Chickens Out). Why? Because the markets realized the administration had zero tolerance for economic pain. Every time a threat caused a dip, a reversal followed.

• May 28, 2025: The President famously fumes at a reporter during a swearing-in ceremony, calling the “chicken” label a “nasty question.” He tries to rebrand the retreat as a “negotiation tactic.”

• July 12, 2025: The “Tariff War” goes nuclear. The administration threatens a 30% sweeping tariff on Mexico and the EU, citing national security and trade deficits. Markets thrash. International partners scramble.

• August 1, 2025: The “Killing Blow” to legacy media. After weeks of threatening to ruin the Mexican economy, the President signs an executive order that raises tariffs on Canada to 35% but—predictably—extends the deadline for Mexico by 90 days.

The Media Capitulation: Falling in Line

This is where the “intellectual digestion” gets sour. Once those tariffs were lifted or delayed in August, the airwaves changed overnight. Fox, MSNBC, and CNN—networks that are usually at each other’s throats—all began to capitulate.

Instead of reporting on the damage the threat did to supply chains, they began to praise the “stabilization.” They reported on the “resolution” of a crisis that the President himself had sparked with a Truth Social post. By late August, when punitive tariffs were slapped on India (moving from 25% to 50% in a single month), the media didn’t call it a trade war anymore; they called it “leverage.”

January 2026: The Scorecard

Here we are in the first week of January 2026, and we are still feeling the “stabilization” of markets that should never have been destabilized in the first place.

The public isn’t stupid. We see the “TACO” pattern for what it is: a game of chicken where the only person who doesn’t lose is the one holding the remote. My hesitancy to use the word “Taco” remains—because food is meant to nourish, not to describe a president who sets the house on fire just so he can be thanked for handing out the garden hose.

But the scorecard is marked. The dates are logged. And as a writer, I’m calling it: Strike Three.

Sources:

• Financial Times, “The TACO Trade,” Robert Armstrong (May 2025).

• AP News, “Trump defends ‘TACO’ approach but rejects ‘chickening out’” (May 28, 2025).