About that phrase. I’m afraid that much overused quote is about as effective as “Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there!”. It doesn’t mean jack to Republicans, and I have never seen a groundswell of support from the Left whenever anyone said it.
It’s not so much What he said. Well, it is. But really it the fact that this group of people, you know human beings stood there and let’s this man get away with it, yet again.
We know he’s nasty and a spoiled child. The alarm is we accept it. No one stands up to him. Of course you wouldn’t threaten or curse but you could say “that’s wrong, Mr.President, you don’t call names” he broke the wall of decorum.
It’s the same thing as these dem lawmakers making the video. For military people to stand against illegal orders. His underwear is in a right twist over this. Because he’s seeing the curtain coming down. If reporters, who are these human beings first, quit hanging on his every word, call him out if it’s a blantant falsehood or an ugly comment. He’ll eventually quit. It’s how you train kids and dogs.
Nevertheless, “every accusation is a confession” is the truest thing said about the right and requires repeating after every accusation.
The depressing part is I’m not sure that’s true. It’s not like Trump’s immune from criticism. He’s immune from consequences. Obama would have been criticized widely for this. But that only matters because he and the Democrats actually cared about the office of the president and the unwritten conventions that hold the whole political system together
Trump has shown as long as your partisan base is behind you (or too scared of you to do anything meaningful to oppose you) can freely ignore all the criticism and ride roughshod over all those conventions, and there will be no comeuppance.
That’s a genie that can’t be put back in the bottle. Whatever happens to Trump (and that is far more likely to be decided by the hand of the grim reaper than any check or balance in the US constitution), the lesson will be there for any up coming politician to see. That depresses me and this is just a symptom of that 
One of the headlines on CNN (if you click on the “live updates about Trump”) now reads:
“White House defends Trump after he calls reporter “piggy,” says president was being “frank and honest””
His comment is extra maddening because in the world we all live in, such a thing would earn you, at minimum, a slap in the face. But as the nation’s most weak weakling, Trump knows the secret service is there to protect him. This amplifies what a shitty thing it was to say by bringing the coward aspect to the situation.
He’s a dumb, weak coward, and Republicans admire him for it.
Moderating:
After speaking with our OP, @Beckdawrek, I’ve updated the title to reflect what the original “nastiness” was referring too. The OP did specify, but the conversation has evolved. To keep it within the reasonable boundary of P&E, the specific remark, and a more general discussion about why this and similar remarks are accepted/tolerated or overlooked is also fair game.
Otherwise, let’s not have another thread evolve accidently into an Omnibus rant-thread in P&E like what happened to Wolfpup’s:
No warnings or notes for any individual posts so far in the thread, but let’s now have a more specific and debatable discussion.
I take a bit of hope in the fact that we have yet to see a single other U.S. politician who has been able to get away with this schtick the way Trump has, so it may not really represent a model others can use to seize power and abuse it the same way. No Democrat could do it, and even when Republicans like DeSantis or Greg Abbott try it, it falls flat because they just haven’t got that magic charisma or whatever. Trump may indeed be a once-in-history outlier. In ten years, we still haven’t seen any imitators do it successfully.
If someone like JD Vance were to say “Quiet, piggy,” even MAGA would snicker because of how fake it would seem coming from him.
Yes, Trump is an authentic asshole, not a pretend one.
I, too, wonder what Democrat could do this and it doesn’t just cause a firestorm?
Maybe Gavin Newsom. He has a handle on snark, it seems.
I don’t think he’d say that to a woman, what do I know tho’? He certainly knows how to insult with a certain flourish.
That is one jaw-dropping “apology”. 
It was not meant to be an apology, just a retracted statement.
There isn’t a single Democrat who could do “this” (use a demeaning personal insult to avoid answering a valid question from a reporter). Because the Democratic base doesn’t want to see that, so they’re not going to tolerate it, much less celebrate it.
Even if the reporter was asking a clearly bad faith question, Democrats might want a candidate who sharply and critically shuts that shit down, but not with a demeaning personal insult like “quiet, piggy”.
The only person I think Newsom would say “Quiet, Piggy” to is Trump. And he should, it would be hilarious.
I think he’s had his Trump jokes on the “Quiet Piggy” remark on his social media pretty heavily.
You people are all wet. W.H. Press Secretary says Donnie was just being frank and open and we should appreciate him for it, goddammit!
Trump Calling Reporter ‘Piggy’ Was ‘Frankness,’ White House Says
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, addressed for the first time a schoolyard insult that President Trump lobbed at a Bloomberg News reporter last week.
…
On Thursday, Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, put a different spin on the remark.“I think everyone in this room should appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis,” Ms. Leavitt told reporters during a briefing in the West Wing.
Ms. Leavitt, who was asked by a journalist to explain what Mr. Trump had meant when he used the term “piggy,” presented the following logic:
“The president is very frank and honest with everyone in this room. You’ve seen it yourself. You’ve all experienced it yourselves. And I think it’s one of the many reasons that the American people re-elected this president, because of his frankness. And he calls out fake news when he sees it. He gets frustrated with reporters when you lie about him, when you spread fake news about him and his administration.”
She added: “The president being frank and open and honest to your faces, rather than hiding behind your backs, is, frankly, a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration.”
…
Let’s check back in with her when (inevitably) Donnie calls her a “blond bimbo.”
No no no. Low intelligence Blond Bimbo. 
Remark by Karoline Leavitt, as quoted in ThelmaLou’s post.
The remark is a lie. The reporter to whom Donald replied with “quiet, piggy” had not lied about him. She’d said “Sir, if there’s nothing incriminating in the files…”—which cannot be classified as “a lie.”
It’s unsurprising that Leavitt’s defense of Donald is utterly lame and unrelated to facts, of course.
I think this is the best explanation of why this incident is getting so much attention. The dictator shoved in our faces the fact that he never faces any consequences for the gross violations he commits. He shoved in our face the fact that we just have to take it.
That’s appalling.
(How I would love it if when Donald next invites himself to some major sporting event, the entire stadium erupts in “QUIET, PIGGY” when he tries to address the crowd.
(That is not a mature or ethically-advanced wish, of course.
(But I still wish it…)
Dan Rather writes in his newsletter today:
It is important to note that none of Lucey and Bruce’s fellow journalists came to their defense. “Because access beats out solidarity, every day of the week,” Bill Grueskin, a former editor at The Wall Street Journal and currently a professor at Columbia Journalism School, posted on social media.
It is doubtful that either Lucey or Bruce expected other White House correspondents to say anything. Journalism is, after all, a competitive business. Also, fears about job security are real.
[Bruce being Mary Bruce, who was also insulted by Trump when she asked him:
Is it appropriate, Mr. President, for your family to be doing business in Saudi Arabia while you’re president? Is that a conflict of interest?” She then turned to the prince and said, “Your Royal Highness, the U.S. Intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist — 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? And the same to you, Mr President.”
Is true. I apologize for not realizing that Trump was playing Calvinball.
Get a Dem ventriloquist to yell it at the SOTU address 