by Gary Humble

We have an epidemic here in Tennessee, an epidemic of lies and propaganda being force-fed to taxpayers on their own dime.

On the heels of the Fauci email dump conclusively showing what we always knew—masks do not work—it seems prudent to showcase details about the continual lies being perpetrated against the people of Tennessee straight from the Governor’s office.

On March 12, 2020, Governor Bill Lee issued his first executive order pertaining to the state’s response to COVID-19. Remember, at this time, Fauci was confident that masks were ineffective at preventing the spread of any virus. This was stated in several emails by Fauci through February 2020 including an interview with 60 Minutes on March 3. Yet, barely one month into the emergency declaration, Bill Lee was already preparing a massive campaign to inform the citizens of Tennessee how important it would be to stay apart and wear masks.

On April 22, 2020, the Governor’s office directly authorized emergency expenditures to a communications firm out of Knoxville called Designsensory, with costs totaling $16,729.50 designated for the development of a creative toolkit for COVID-19 public service announcements. This toolkit would become part of a package to help launch the #FaceItTN masking campaign in the fall of 2020, with messages appearing on every social media site, every major television network, and on billboards across the state of Tennessee.

Understand that this monstrous media push to wear masks did not just suddenly appear in the fall of 2020. This was a strategic plan set in motion only one month into the emergency declaration. In April 2020, I wonder how many Tennesseans were thinking that we would still be experiencing state mandates and restrictions throughout the year and on into 2021? I certainly did not. The Governor’s office, however, was seemingly well aware that the emergency was never going to end.

The state of Tennessee awarded two contracts in August 2020 to complete the work for the COVID-19 PSA campaign—one to VLMY&R for $4,000,000 and one to Designsensory for $3,950,000. An additional $2,000,000 was awarded to Designsensory in November 2020.

For a while, everyone was talking about the $8,000,000 no-bid contract that was awarded to a sock company to make masks for emergency use here in Tennessee. They reeked of chemicals and people were afraid to use them. But no one was talking about another $10,000,000 of your own money that the state was going to spend trying to convince you that mask-wearing was a new way of life, like it or not.

The PSA campaign is straight out of the Chinese Communist Party playbook. Why are millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on state-sponsored media promoting a message that a significant portion of the population (including medical and other industry professionals) completely disagrees with? In what law or by what constitution does the state find a prescribed duty to perpetrate what some might call a public misinformation campaign?

To make matters worse, who are these people that have been hired to manipulate the public? Don’t get me wrong. VLMY&R is a formidable and global force for communications. And from what I can tell, they are incredible at what they do. But they are as progressive as they come. Their staff includes directors of diversity, equity and inclusion. The company was just named one of the best places to work for LGBTQ equality by the Human Rights Campaign. And, a search of the FEC finds that out of 2,522 donations to federal political campaigns dating back to 2017, 99.4 percent of those donations went to the Democratic Party. These people are progressives to the core. And this is who Bill Lee, your conservative Christian governor, hired to try to convince you to wear masks.

But we’re just getting started. It is not enough that the governor is spending your tax dollars trying to convince you to wear a mask. The national media, along with the Biden administration, has now determined that Tennessee is one of the most vaccine-hesitant populations. And that does not look good on a guy who wore it as a badge of honor to be leading one of four states to roll out logistics testing for Pfizer. I mean, Tennessee is the Volunteer State. We should all be vaccinated by now, right?

So, get ready for the next round of taxpayer-funded public service announcements letting you know how selfish you are for not taking the vaccine.

Designsensory has once again been tasked with convincing you that you need to obey the state. You must comply. It is your duty as a friend and neighbor to be vaccinated whether you want to or not.

So far, Designsensory has provided two reports to Governor Bill Lee’s office (in March and April 2021) to help put together a plan for addressing vaccine hesitancy in the state with targeted messaging to demographic groups. It’s worth noting that the report found that white, rural conservatives are a problem.

Here are some of the key findings of the study:

– 66% of Tennesseans are unwilling or undecided about getting the vaccine.
– 59% of Tennesseans are more scared of dying of the vaccine than of COVID-19.
– 70% of Tennesseans don’t trust any of the COVID-19 vaccines currently available.
– There is a broad lack of trust in information currently available regarding the vaccines.
– Only 25% believe that if enough people get vaccinated it will create herd immunity.

Key responses from study participants:

I’m not entirely sure it would be wise for me to take the vaccine.
I do not trust most vaccines, especially one that has not really been tested for some time.
There hasn’t been enough testing done to see what the long-term effects may be.
I am not sure of the necessity nor of the safety.

Honestly, that is not even the best part. Now, Bill Lee understands that you don’t want the vaccine. You don’t trust the vaccine. Is he going to leave well enough alone and trust Tennesseans to make their own informed decisions? No, of course not. He is going to spend millions more of your tax dollars trying to convince you that you are wrong and emotionally coerce you into taking the vaccine.

Enter Designsensory’s Quantitative Report on how to manipulate Tennesseans with half-truths and emotional pleas to get the desired response.

Here are some of the key findings in that report:

– The strongest position of unwilling/no interest is most pronounced with the white population. Black and Hispanic are more willing but hesitant.
– As is consistent with findings in other studies, white/rural/conservatives represent the most pronounced unwilling/no interest segment of the population.
– The reasons boil down to a lack of consistent, believable messaging around vaccine development and testing facts. And they haven’t been delivered by trusted sources.
– White, and especially white/rural/conservatives have the lowest fear of death from either. They’re just not overly concerned about the illness or the need for the vaccine.
– Leverage the power of the personal physician or other local physician. With the Black audience, leverage the CDC.
– MUST deliver a sincere emotional appeal. An appeal to love of family and love of self to compel action to get a COVID vaccine.
– Deliver the warmth of the emotional appeal (not sappy) while lifting the solid facts of testing (even the length of time that has gone into developing the type of vaccines that have been in development) by scientific medical experts. Need to overcome the fear of the unknown associated with the speed to delivery of the vaccine which has created a sense of skepticism related to long-term effects.
– 49% to 58% (all groups) would be most willing to take the vaccine for their family.

So, are you ready for the new tagline for the vaccine hesitancy marketing campaign from the state of Tennessee paid for by your tax dollars?

“Do it for your family. Do it for yourself.”

I don’t know about you, but I am sick of seeing this type of manipulative message coming from our state government. It is wrong. It is well outside of the constitutional duties of the state. And using our own money against us to convince us that we are misinformed and selfish is egregious.

Bill Lee needs to put an end to these PSA expenditures. If Vanderbilt, HCA and Ballad want to spend their own money trying to convince me to take a vaccine, fine. But peddling this propaganda with taxpayer dollars is wrong. It is evil. And it needs to stop.

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Gary Humble is the founder and executive director of Tennessee Stands, an organization working to secure liberty and hold elected officials accountable to the Constitution through legislation, litigation and education. Follow Gary @garyhumble and visit tennesseestands.org.