From “fake news” to “quiet, piggy”: The dark evolution of a decade-long war on truth

Make the messenger so repulsive or small in the eyes of the base, and the message itself evaporates.

By Jeff Nesbit

“Quiet, quiet piggy.”

The words hung in the air, not just as an insult, but as a signal. They were directed by President Donald Trump to Catherine Lucey, Bloomberg’s respected White House correspondent, as she attempted to press him on the Epstein Files.

On Tuesday, the target shifted to ABC News’ Mary Bruce, berated by Trump as a “terrible person” and “insubordinate” for asking difficult questions regarding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

To the casual observer, these might appear to be standard-issue Trumpisms—the outburst of a leader who dislikes scrutiny. But to dismiss them as mere rudeness is dangerous.

Photo by Hartono Creative Studio on Unsplash

These recent incidents, highlighted by former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson as “despicable” and “degrading,” mark a chilling evolution in a strategy I have been tracking for a decade.

We are witnessing a shift from delegitimizing the product of journalism (the news) to dehumanizing the producer of journalism (the reporter). It is the final, necessary step in dismantling the free press as a check on power.

The Seeds of Lügenpresse

To understand where we are today, you have to look back at where this began. In 2016, I wrote a column for Time magazine warning that Trump’s supporters had begun adopting a specific, historically loaded German phrase to attack the American media: Lügenpresse, or “lying press.”

At the time, it seemed like a fringe curiosity. The term had been infamous in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party, used effectively by Joseph Goebbels to convince the German public that all information coming from outside the party apparatus was inherently false.

I noted then and again in a 2017 column for U.S. News & World Report that the adoption of this rhetoric was not accidental. It was a mechanical tool of authoritarianism.

The goal of Lügenpresse—or its Americanized branding, “fake news”—was to inoculate supporters against facts. It created a tribal epistemology: If the news is fake, then the facts don’t matter.

For nearly a decade, this strategy worked. By constantly labeling legacy media outlets as “Fake News” and the “enemy of the people,” Trump successfully broke the shared reality of the American electorate.

But as effective as that strategy was, it had a limit. Even if you believe the news is fake, the reporter standing in front of you still holds a certain status as a professional asking a question on behalf of the public.

That status is what Trump is now destroying.

The Language of Dominance and Dehumanization

The shift from “fake news” to “quiet, piggy” represents a dark turn of the tactic. When you call a news story “fake,” you are debating—however dishonestly—the veracity of the content. When you call a reporter a “pig,” you are removing her humanity. You are signaling to your followers that this person does not deserve the basic dignity afforded to an adult professional.

Carlson, who knows something about the weaponization of humiliation, immediately recognized the gravity of the “piggy” comment. As she noted in her defense of the White House press corps, such language is “disgusting and degrading,” designed to strike at the core of a woman’s confidence.

It is a gendered weapon, used to reduce a female journalist to her physical form, stripping away her intellect and her credentials in a single breath.

But beyond the misogyny, there is a structural ambition at work here. Look closely at the language used against Bruce: “insubordinate.”

This is perhaps the most revealing slip of the tongue in the president’s recent tirades. “Insubordination” is a military or corporate term; it applies to a refusal to obey orders from a superior.

But in the American constitutional experiment, the free press is not subordinate to the president. The press is the proxy of the public. Members of the press are explicitly protected by the First Amendment to act as a check on government power. Reporters cannot be “insubordinate” to a president because the president is not their commander.

By using that specific word, Trump is revealing his internal map of governance: He views the presidency not as a service but as a rulership. In his view, the press is there to amplify his message, and when reporters question it, they are not doing their jobs, they are disobeying his orders.

The Vacuum of Truth

History provides a grim blueprint for how authoritarian political figures dismantle accountability, and the process rarely changes. It invariably starts with a specific vocabulary designed to isolate the media.

In my 2017 analysis, I argued that destroying media credibility was “Stage 3” of a five-stage slide toward authoritarianism. We are now living in the advanced adaptation of that stage. The goal is to create a vacuum of truth.

If you successfully convince a large swath of the electorate that the New York Times and ABC News are liars, you have won the battle for the narrative. But if you can go further—if you can convince the public that the specific human beings holding the microphones are “pigs,” “terrible people,” and “insubordinate” subjects—you win the battle for dominance.

This is why the “piggy” comment is so effective as a piece of political theater. It invites the audience to laugh at the reporter rather than listen to her question. It transforms the White House from a place of accountability into an arena of humiliation.

If Catherine Lucey is just a “piggy,” then her questions about the Epstein files can be dismissed without an answer. If Mary Bruce is “terrible,” her inquiries about Saudi Arabia are irrelevant.

The strategy is to make the messenger so repulsive or small in the eyes of the base that the message itself evaporates.

The Danger of Normalization

The danger we face now, a decade into this consistent pattern, is fatigue. We have become so accustomed to the insults, the labeling of the “lying press,” and the rallies where journalists are jeered at in their pens, that a comment like “quiet, piggy” risks becoming just another soundbite in a chaotic news cycle.

But we cannot afford to be numb. When I wrote about the Lügenpresse phenomenon in 2016, the concern was that the American public would lose the ability to agree on basic facts. In 2025, the concern is that we are losing the ability to recognize the basic dignity of those who ask the questions.

This is not just about manners or decorum. It is about the systematic removal of the referees from the playing field. When a leader feels comfortable calling a representative of the free press a “pig” to her face, he is not just insulting a woman; he is announcing that he no longer feels bound by the constraints of a democratic society that requires him to answer to the people.

The “lying press” strategy has evolved. It is no longer just about lies. It is about silence. And if we allow the press to be silenced by humiliation, we will find that the only voice left speaking is the one barking the insults.

Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief for five Cabinet departments or agencies under four presidents.

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