TACO enjoyers always come out on top.

> US backed down -- TACO Trump shows up again.

It's stunning to me, that people still do not understand Trump's one-and-only playbook. He literally published a book about his one-and-only strategy all the way back in 1987 - yet people still freak out when he makes big demands then settles for more realistic options. The guy literally has used the same strategy over and over, and everyone acts like it's the first time every time.

It's also stunning to me the very same people that were losing their minds about threatened events immediately switch into "TACO" mode when those events don't happen.

In this situation, Trump made wild threats and demands if Iran didn't agree to a ceasefire. Iran initially rejected but then some 6 hours later accepted. The one-and-only playbook strikes again.

How is it backing down when his threat was we’d do it if they didn’t agree to open up the strait, which is now open?

I don’t like the way he does things but we’ve seen Trump’s playbook enough to see what he does. Big threat, followed by the US getting some sort of capitulation from it. He then doesn’t follow through with the threat.

That’s not chickening out. That’s just negotiating with a big stick.

> The US didn't back down, it used a credible mad-man style threat to get what it wanted.

Okay. Tell me, what did the US got? You say they got what they wanted. What is that they wanted and now got?

It's a bad strategy.

A high schooler could tell you that.

The 12 D chess explanation, people still believe this?

This whole thing is a debacle. Trump was manipulated by his betters into engaging a war he doesn't understand at all [0], and while flailing he just reached for the most insane threat he could imagine.

The madman theory ironically actually requires a sane and competent person to perform the bluff, [1] which is not the case here.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory

"I will end your civilization" is not credible. He'd lose a war powers vote and likely be removed if he even started down that path. To say nothing for the logistical impossibility.

He's not doing some Scott Adams master persuader nonsense. He spent a month being ignored by his counterparty so he just kept amping up the rhetoric until he was threating actual genocide. With human shields placed around the infrastructure he promised to attack, the president desperately begged Pakistan to broker a ceasefire with two sets of terms.

it really seems like the US is just ceding to iranian terms. the US cant solve the hormuz strait problem militarily, and so it has to come to the table

That is certainly a favorable interpretation of events. I don't buy it. I think there's more evidence that he's actually an erratic, compulsive liar than some master strategist. What great deals has he secured for the US?

People keep saying this, and yet Trump just sounds like a fucking moron to me, if you’ll pardon me quoting his former Secretary of State.

Can you give me some examples of where he’s done this in the last and it actually worked?

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The US is in a worse spot than before the war. Iran won.