Democrats leaned into the TACO trend on Tuesday by handing out free food in Republican territory, drawing ire from all sides. While many liberals loved the “Trump Always Chickens Out” jab, many leftists feel that the times call for less political theater and more concrete action.
Democrats bring the tacos to the RNC
Starting at noon on Tuesday, Democrats rolled up to the Republican National Committee’s headquarters in D.C. with a taco truck and a big inflatable chicken resembling President Donald Trump. The plan was to give out free tacos to annoy the right after Wall Street traders reportedly began using the acronym “TACO”—Trump Always Chickens Out—to describe the President’s tariff policies.
“Trump always chickens out — we’re just bringing the tacos to match,” said DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “Instead of realizing his tariff chaos is wrecking the economy, Trump continues to drag America towards more economic pain, and the rest of the world sees Trump for exactly what he is: a chicken.”
The term already got under Trump’s skin as he demonstrated last Wednesday when asked by a reporter during a press briefing at the Oval Office. Yesterday was TACO Tuesday for liberals on X, who celebrated the day with anti-Trump memes.
However, not everyone on the left was impressed by this Democratic stunt. Among leftists in particular, the reactions were more negative than positive.
“Look at my opposition party dawg”
On X and Bluesky, a large portion of lefty users reacted to the free tacos thing with a kind of exhausted disappointment. The progressive X account @PushDemsLeft even agreed with Vice President JD Vance when he called today’s Democrats “the lamest opposition in American history.”
“Making JD Vance correct about something is unforgivable,” they wrote.
User @GalaxyPeaBrain repurposed the “We Got Soul” meme to ask House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries if his party has a plan, to which he replies, “we got tacos.”
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reacted to the news with a despondent “look at my opposition party dawg”—a play on the “look at my lawyer dawg” meme.
The stunt fared no better on Bluesky, where @helldude.bsky.social declared that “if you still support these guys in any way other than as an unacceptable compromise vs. outright fascism, then you need to seriously reexamine everything.”
User @victorperfecto.bsky.social, meanwhile, pulled out that old screenshot from The Simpsons with DNC banners reading “we hate lives and ourselves” and “we can’t govern!”
These responses are another blaring signal that trust in and enthusiasm for the Democrats are at historic lows among their typical supporters. Their 2024 election failure, followed by a confused and lackluster response to Trump’s unprecedented actions during his second term, has left some Democratic voters feeling abandoned and cynical.
It’s going to take more than a Trump chicken balloon and tacos to turn this around.
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