In the fevered atmosphere of the pastdecade, a single word became a cudgel, a rallying cry, and, most insidiously, ablank check: disinformation. It was wielded to explain every electoralupset, every inconvenient story, every challenge to the prevailing narrative.Russian bots, we were told, delivered Donald Trump to the White House. TheHunter Biden laptop? Disinformation. The Wuhan lab leak hypothesis?Misinformation, at best. The term became a catch-all, a moral trump card thatcould silence dissent without the messy work of refutation.

The Biden administration, ever attuned tothe zeitgeist, seized upon this panic with a zeal that was both predictable andalarming. As a new investigation by The Free Press reveals, theadministration authorized over 600 grants to combat “disinformation,” funnelingtaxpayer dollars into a sprawling network of programs that often blurred theline between public service and partisan activism. Now, with Donald Trump’sreturn to power, the spigot is being turned off—but not before exposing atroubling truth about how the left has weaponized the fight againstmisinformation to bankroll its ideological allies.

Consider the scale of it: hundreds ofprograms, some nestled in unlikely corners of the bureaucracy like the NationalInstitutes of Health, which funded initiatives to counter “misinformation”about Covid-19 and promote vaccination among racial minorities. One such grant,worth a staggering $22.4 million, went to a progressive Hispanic nonprofit—anorganization whose mission, while cloaked in the language of public health,aligned neatly with the Democratic Party’s electoral priorities. These were notneutral efforts to inform; they were, in many cases, thinly veiled campaignfronts, using the guise of fighting falsehoods to advance a worldview that justhappened to dovetail with the administration’s political goals.

This is not to say that misinformationisn’t real or that it lacks consequences. The internet age has unleashed atorrent of half-truths and outright lies, and any serious society must grapplewith the resulting erosion of trust. But the left’s approach—spearheaded byBiden’s team—has been less about truth than about control. The FBI’s pressureon Meta to censor Covid-related content, the Department of Homeland Security’sflirtation with a self-styled “Mary Poppins of disinformation,” and thesanctimonious chorus of cable news pundits decrying their rivals as Kremlinpawns all point to a deeper impulse: the desire to define truth itself, and topunish those who deviate.

What’s most striking about these efforts istheir unintended consequences. Far from restoring trust, they’ve deepenedskepticism. When government dollars flow to organizations that blur the linebetween advocacy and education, the public doesn’t feel enlightened—they feelmanipulated. When “disinformation” becomes a pretext for silencing debate, it’snot the liars who suffer most; it’s the ordinary citizen, who begins to suspectthat every official narrative is just another sales pitch. The Biden administration’scrusade, however well-intentioned, has done more to undermine faith ininstitutions than any viral meme ever could.

Now, as Trump’s team begins dismantlingthese programs, there’s an opportunity to reflect on what went wrong. The FreePress investigation notes that two NIH grants were canceled only afterreporters started asking questions—a damning indictment of a system thatthrived in the shadows. Trump’s approach, predictably blunt, may risk its ownexcesses, but it’s hard to mourn the end of a machine that turned public fundsinto private ideological victories.

The lesson here is not that we shouldignore misinformation but that we must fight it with better tools: open debate,rigorous evidence, and a humility that acknowledges no one side owns the truth.The left’s great error was to treat the public as a flock to be herded ratherthan a community to be persuaded. In doing so, they didn’t just waste taxdollars—they squandered something far more precious: the fragile trust thatholds a democracy together.