This is the final part of a three-part analysis examining how Donald Trump’s “quiet piggy” comment reveals the systematic dismantling of democratic norms. Part One explored how the flood-the-zone strategy and attention economy make outrages disappear. Part Two examined the nine-year war on women who dare to speak. Part Three maps the global authoritarian playbook for destroying press freedom and asks whether we’ll resist before silence becomes survival.

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Parts One and Two showed how the machinery of forgetting almost buried the “quiet piggy” incident, and how it fits into a nine-year campaign targeting women who speak. The pattern repeats globally: authoritarians always test cruelty on women first, measuring tolerance before expanding to other populations.

Now we need to understand the broader strategy. Because Trump’s treatment of journalists isn’t personal pathology. It’s the systematic dismantling of democratic infrastructure using a playbook refined over decades by authoritarians worldwide.

Every regime that’s successfully transitioned from democracy to autocracy has followed roughly the same progression. The specifics vary, but the structure is depressingly consistent.

And it’s being deployed in America right now, with surgical precision, while the American people are too exhausted or distracted to mount sustained resistance. We’d be fools to think our own homegrown strongmen aren’t taking notes.

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The Four-Phase Authoritarian Playbook

The destruction of press freedom follows a predictable pattern. We can map it like clockwork because it’s been tested in dozens of countries, refined through trial and error, optimised for effectiveness.

Here’s how democracies lose their press freedom without technically censoring anyone.

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Phase One: Delegitimise

Objective: Make the public distrust journalists before they distrust you.

Brand the press as enemies, liars, purveyors of “fake news.” Strip journalists of the public sympathy that might otherwise protect them. Make critical coverage seem like partisan warfare rather than accountability. Last election, Peter Dutton attacked The ABC: “Forget about what you have been told by the ABC, The Guardian and the other hate media. Listen to what you hear on the doors.”

Trump’s been executing this phase since 2015. “Enemies of the people” is language lifted straight from Stalin’s handbook. It’s not accidental. It’s not hyperbole. It’s calculated dehumanisation.

The delegitimisation works through relentless repetition. Trump doesn’t need to prove journalists are dishonest. He just needs to repeat the accusation often enough that his supporters internalise it as truth.

And it works. Surveys show Trump supporters trust the President over journalists by overwhelming margins. They believe the press is deliberately lying, not just getting things wrong.

The brilliance of this phase is that it requires no formal action. No censorship laws. No shut newsrooms. Just constant, repetitive messaging that journalists are enemies who cannot be trusted.

Global Examples:

• Putin’s Russia: State media frames independent journalists as Western agents, traitors.
• Orbán’s Hungary: Independent media labelled as “Soros-funded propaganda.”
• Modi’s India: Critical journalists framed as anti-national, anti-Hindu.
• Scott Morrison (2021): Told Sky News: “The ABC has a very clear view of the world… It’s not journalism; it’s advocacy.” Amid scrutiny of his COVID response, he threatened to “review” the ABC’s funding if it didn’t “stick to facts,” calling its reporting “elitist” and “out of touch.”

Once journalists are successfully framed as enemies rather than watchdogs, every subsequent phase becomes easier. The public won’t object to their harassment because they’ve been taught journalists deserve it.

Australia’s already seen this progression with women journalists targeted first: Antoinette Lattouf sacked by ABC Radio in December 2023. Nour Haydar resigning from ABC Federal Politics in March 2024. Yassmin Abdel-Magied effectively forced out in 2017. The pattern is consistent, predictable, and accelerating.

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Phase Two: Intimidate

Objective: Make journalists afraid through public humiliation and implicit threats of violence.

Mock them. Humiliate them. Single them out at rallies so the crowd turns feral. Make them afraid, not just of you personally, but of your supporters, who’ve been primed to see journalists as legitimate targets.

Trump’s rallies have been masterclasses in this technique since day one. Point to the media pen at the back. Let the crowd boo, jeer, threaten. Create an atmosphere where journalists need security just to do their jobs.

Call them pigs. Make it personal. Make it sexual when they’re women.

The intimidation works on many levels:

• Immediate: The journalist being targeted feels afraid, humiliated, threatened.
• Collective: Other journalists watch and learn. They see what happens when you ask the wrong questions.
• Cultural: The broader public sees journalists being mocked and threatened, and those who already distrust the press feel validated.

The goal isn’t to silence any individual journalist through intimidation. It’s to create a climate of fear where self-censorship becomes the rational choice.

Global Examples:

• Duterte’s Philippines: The president joked about raping female journalists, called them whores.
• Bolsonaro’s Brazil: Constant attacks on journalists as communists, enemies, liars.
• Lukashenko’s Belarus: Journalists beaten at protests while police watch.

The intimidation doesn’t need to be formal. It just needs to be consistent enough that journalists understand the risks of doing their jobs properly.

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Phase Three: Isolate

Objective: Create tiered access where compliant media thrives and critical outlets starve.

Revoke credentials. Ban outlets. Create systems where friendly, embedded media get interviews, scoops, and access while critical outlets get frozen out. Make it clear: compliance brings rewards, criticism brings exile.

Fox News gets the exclusive interviews. Sympathetic podcasters get Air Force One access. CNN gets called fake news and loses credentials.

It doesn’t take formal censorship when the marketplace of access does the censoring for you.

And here’s where corporate ownership makes everything worse. When billionaires own major outlets and those billionaires have business before the government, the pressure to comply becomes overwhelming.

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The Corporate Capture Problem

• Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and Amazon, which needs government contracts.
• The Murdoch empire operates Fox News as state media, shaping coverage to protect power.
• Sinclair Broadcasting forces local stations nationwide to run centrally produced propaganda segments.
• Rupert Murdoch’s media still enjoys a huge monopoly in Australia, setting the agenda for all other mainstream media to follow.

When ownership is consolidated, commodified and compromised, you don’t need to intimidate every individual reporter. You just need to pressure their bosses. They’ll do the censoring themselves, rebranding capitulation as “editorial judgment.”

Imagine the ABC we’d have today without the concerted efforts by Richard Alston, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison to attack its independence; a bastardisation accompanied by systematic funding cuts. Today, our ABC’s resolve is broken and much programming follows the same infotainment, knee-jerk-right-wingery or tabloid sensationalism of the commercial stations.

Global Examples:

• Orbán’s Hungary: State advertising revenue redirected exclusively to friendly outlets.
• Putin’s Russia: Independent outlets lose access to officials, government data.
• Erdoğan’s Turkey: Media companies owned by government-friendly oligarchs.

The isolation doesn’t need to be formal or announced. It just needs to be understood. Play ball and you get access. Cause problems and you’re out in the cold.

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Phase Four: Let the Mob Do the Rest (Stochastic Terrorism)

Objective: Generate predictable violence through public demonisation while maintaining deniability.

Here’s the genius of modern authoritarianism: you don’t need to order violence. That’s the beauty of stochastic terrorism; predictable patterns of violence generated by public demonisation.

You just call someone a pig on national television. You just declare journalists “enemies of the people.” You just point them out at rallies and let your supporters fill in the blanks.

Somewhere out there, someone decides that defending their president means sending rape threats with the journalist’s home address. Someone else decides it means showing up at their house.

You maintain deniability. They take the risk. The effect is the same: journalists learn that asking uncomfortable questions carries costs that extend beyond professional consequences into actual, physical danger.

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The Documented Progression

Since Trump’s first campaign, they’ve witnessed:

• Journalists physically assaulted at rallies.
• Reporters doxxed, their home addresses and family details published.
• Newsroom shootings, including the Capital Gazette massacre.
• The January 6th insurrection included organised targeting of media equipment.
• Systematic rape and death threats against female journalists.

This isn’t theoretical. It’s documented, ongoing reality. And each incident teaches the same lesson:

“… ask the wrong questions and you might die. Your colleagues might not defend you. Your employer might not protect you.“

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Global Examples

• Putin’s Russia: Anna Politkovskaya, murdered in her apartment building.
• Duterte’s Philippines: Journalists covering the drug war were murdered systematically.
• Saudi Arabia: Jamal Khashoggi dismembered with a bone saw in a consulate.

The violence doesn’t need to be officially sanctioned. It just needs to be predictable, systematic, and unpunished.

And once that pattern is established, formal censorship becomes unnecessary. Journalists censor themselves because survival requires it.

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Where We Are Now: Mapping Their Position in the Playbook

So where does the “quiet piggy” moment place them in the authoritarian progression?

• Phase One (Delegitimise): Complete. The groundwork is laid.
• Phase Two (Intimidate): Well advanced. Self-censorship is widespread.
• Phase Three (Isolate): In progress. The access journalism model is crumbling into tiered compliance.
• Phase Four (Violence): Beginning. The violence is predictable enough to modify behaviour but not yet widespread enough to completely silence dissent.

The US is currently somewhere between Phase Three and Phase Four. The machinery is operational. The pattern is established. The question is whether it continues to Phase Four’s full implementation or whether resistance emerges before they get there.

The “quiet piggy” moment is significant because it shows Phase Two intensifying even as Phase Three becomes normalised. Trump’s not just delegitimising and intimidating anymore. He’s confident enough to do it on camera, knowing the consequences will be minimal.

That confidence comes from success. The playbook is working. And he knows it.

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Where Australia Stands

If America is between Phase Three and Phase Four, Australia’s not far behind:

Phase One (Delegitimise): Advanced. Dutton’s “hate media” framing, Morrison’s “advocacy not journalism,” decades of Coalition attacks on ABC credibility and budget cuts.

Phase Two (Intimidate): Active. Women journalists sacked, forced out, harassed into silence. The message is clear.

Phase Three (Isolate): Entrenched. News Corp’s 70% monopoly creates automatic tiered access. Sky News functions as state media for the Coalition. ABC funding cuts enforce compliance.

Phase Four (Violence): Not yet systematic, but the online harassment campaigns against Antoinette Lattouf show the groundwork being laid. Coordinated abuse, doxxing threats, organised pressure campaigns; the machinery of stochastic terrorism testing how much violence the public will tolerate before it escalates.

We’re roughly parallel to America’s trajectory; perhaps six months to two years behind. The window here is closing just as fast.

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Why Resistance Matters Now: The Window Is Closing

Here’s what makes this moment critical: they’re at the phase where resistance is still possible but barely.

• Phase One can be reversed through media literacy and trust-building.
• Phase Two can be resisted through solidarity and institutional support.
• Phase Three requires structural reform, breaking up media monopolies.
• Phase Four requires… well, once you’re at widespread violence against journalists, you’re in revolutionary territory.

They’re between Three and Four. The window for peaceful, institutional resistance is closing.

And the “quiet piggy” moment shows how fast that window is closing. When the president can call a female reporter livestock on camera and face minimal consequences, when the White House can double down with victim-blaming, when colleagues stand silent; that’s the window slamming shut in real time.

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What Resistance Looks Like

So what does resistance actually look like at this stage?

For Journalists:

• Solidarity: When Antoinette Lattouf was sacked, every ABC journalist should have walked. When one is targeted, all respond.
• Build Independence: Substack, Patreon, non-profits like Michael West Media and New Matilda. Create economic models that can’t be captured.

For Media Institutions:

• Defend Your People: The ABC’s capitulation to government pressure shows what happens when institutions calculate access over principle. It’s not a calculation; it’s a principle.
• No Journalist Stands Alone: Institute formal protections; legal, financial, public, for any staff member targeted.

For The Public:

• Pay for independent journalism: Subscribe to The AIMN, Michael West Media, TrueNorth, Crikey, The Saturday Paper, Independent Australia; outlets that can’t be captured because they don’t answer to Murdoch or government. (I’m about to curate an up to date list of independent media.)
• Amplify defence, not just outrage: When journalists are attacked, reply and share the defence into the algorithm.
• Cancel compromised subscriptions: If outlets both-sides authoritarianism, vote with your wallet.

For Political Leaders:

• Defend press freedom explicitly: Silence is consent. Labor’s silence on Lattouf was complicity.
• Legislate protection: Strengthen shield laws, journalist protections, anti-SLAPP statutes. Break up media monopolies.

But here’s the hard truth: all of this requires sustained attention and coordinated action in an environment specifically designed to make sustained attention impossible.

That’s why understanding the machinery matters. You can’t resist what you don’t understand.

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The Choice Ahead

So here we are. Three parts, one central argument:

The “quiet piggy” moment isn’t an isolated incident. It’s the latest instalment in a systematic campaign to destroy press freedom using a playbook refined by authoritarians worldwide.

We’ve seen how the machinery of forgetting almost buried it. We’ve traced the nine-year war on women who dare to speak. We’ve mapped the four-phase authoritarian strategy being deployed right now in America—and in Australia.

And we’ve recognised where they are: somewhere between Phase Three and Phase Four, with the window for peaceful resistance closing fast.

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Here’s what keeps me up at night:

Not that the President called a woman a pig. That’s just Tuesday.

Not even that it almost disappeared. That’s how the system works.

What terrifies me is that they understand all of this, they can see the machinery, they can map the strategy, they can predict where it leads—and they’re still not sure they’ll resist.

And we’re watching from Australia, seeing our own Duttons and Murdochs deploy the same playbook, wondering if we’ll resist any better than they have.

Because resistance requires sustained attention in an economy designed to destroy attention. It requires solidarity in a system that punishes solidarity. It requires courage when everyone’s watching their colleagues stand silent and calculating the cost.

The quiet piggy isn’t just Trump’s command to one reporter. It’s his vision for all of them. For all of us.

And the choice ahead is simple, if not easy:

Do they comply?

Do they let the flood-the-zone strategy exhaust them into submission?

Do they let the attention economy fragment their focus until they can’t remember why they were angry?

Do they stand there silent, like that press gaggle, watching someone get called a pig and deciding their own survival matters more than collective resistance?

Or do they finally understand that democracies don’t die in coups anymore?

They die like this. One insult at a time. One capitulation at a time. One journalist learning to be quiet at a time, until the only voices left are the ones power wants us to hear.

“Quiet, piggy” is where they are now.

Whether it’s where they stay depends entirely on whether they remember that silence is consent, exhaustion is surrender, and democracy dies when everyone decides fighting back costs too much.

The machinery is real. The strategy is working. The window is closing.

The question is whether they’ll act before it slams shut completely.

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Urban Wronski writes on politics and the Australian condition at urbanwronski.com

Thank you for staying with this three-part analysis. Share it. Discuss it. But most importantly: resist.

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