Vincent Ryan RuggieroIn 1808 Sir Walter Scott penned the line, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive,” which expressed the power of the lie to cause havoc in society. That power has never been better demonstrated than in the “web” that was created in Donald Trump’s first term and has plagued the United States with lies ever since.
The web began with Crossfire Hurricane, a program now widely regarded as among the most dishonest in America’s history. It was advanced by the “Hillary Clinton campaign, friendlies [sic] at the FBI and top officials at the Obama administration.” It falsely accused Trump of “corruption and collusion” with Russia and was spread by “the Democrats, the media and the intelligence community.” Ben Shapiro calls it “a nefarious plan, enacted at the highest levels of government, to corrupt an election and undermine a presidency.”
The “nefarious plan” did not succeed in undermining all the goals Trump had set for his first term. However, its lies created what became known as “Trump derangement syndrome,” a mental condition that led congressional democrats and progressive republicans to liken him to Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Satan and accuse him of treason. These frenzied expressions resulted in Trump being twice impeached. Although he was acquitted on both occasions, elected officials were emboldened to oppose his programs without explaining their reasoning.
While all this was happening throughout Trump’s first presidency, the mainstream news media were publicizing it with a bias against Trump. This was done not only by slanting their reporting toward Democrats’ negative and often false views of Trump, but also by omitting conservatives’ positive views. The latter practice, though technically not a lie, had the same effect as one by creating the impression that there were no positive views to report.
The lies about Trump undoubtedly helped Joe Biden become president. And they surely shaped the thinking that led him to replace common sense leadership with a breathtaking array of absurdities. Most of Biden’s programs were little more than oppositions to Trump’s. Trump had controlled the border; Biden eliminated controls. Trump had withheld money from Iran; Biden gave generous amounts; Trump had championed oil independence; Biden championed dependence. Trump traced Covid to the Chinese laboratory; Biden blamed bats. And so on.
The outcome of the 2024 election offered a perfect opportunity to untangle the web of lies that has threatened our sanity and our country’s safety for the last decade. The impressive victory of Donald Trump left no doubt about who the American people want to lead them. The Crossfire Hurricane lie has been completely debunked. The additional lies it spawned had been proved false, and the agencies that promoted them have been shamed. As if that weren’t enough reason to abandon the lies against him, the months following his inauguration have proved the sincerity of his promises and demonstrated his total transparency and the impressiveness of his achievements.
Those achievements include his having signed more executive orders during his first 100 days that any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and enacted more laws than anyone since Harry Truman. Yet rather than supporting his efforts, the Democrats have chosen to oppose them by taking him to court an astounding 220 times “over nearly every element of [his] agenda.”
Democrats’ refusal to admit that the tangled web of lies they embraced is patently false defies belief. The rational response would be for them to lament the harm it did, be grateful that President Trump is diligently working to restore the country, and devote themselves to assisting him in whatever way they can. To do anything less is a disgrace to the American people.
Copyright © 2025 by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero. All rights reserved.
Thomas Addis
William Borst
