Notes, references (including the video referenced), & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/of-course-propaganda-works
It’s incredibly rich but often the people who are supposedly experts on influencing, or in fact are doing the influencing, seem to want you to believe instead that there’s no such thing and influencers are like the tooth fairy, and really, workers never wanted to work from home and couldn’t wait to get back to the cubicle farm to get covid, and hey, also, eugenics propaganda can just be ignored because it’s just clickbait right! For pity’s sake, give me a break. Influencers influencing people that there’s no influence. LOL.
References:
Donald Trump GOES FULL EUGENICS NAZI in Morning Interview!!! Jesse Dollemore Aug 5, 2025
CMD - How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On Covid By Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch | December 22nd, 2021 Lockdown measures drove down cases in the U.S. and likely saved millions of lives globally. But the decline of in-person shopping and work, combined with factory shutdowns in places like China, disrupted the economy. A 2020 report from the corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found the hardest-hit industries would take years to recover. One sector in particular that took a big hit was the fossil fuel industry. Oil demand fell sharply in 2020, placing the global economy on uncertain footing. Before long, business-aligned groups — particularly those connected to fossil fuels — began targeting the public health measures threatening their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world. The war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020, when Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, issued a press release calling on states to remain open.
CIDRAP - 4 in 5 Americans support childhood vaccine requirements, poll finds - Jim Wappes June 25, 2025 A poll released today shows that 79% of US adults support requiring children to be vaccinated against preventable infectious diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella to attend school, with even two thirds of Republicans and those who support the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement agreeing with such measures.
COVID-19 lockdown revisionism Blake Murdoch, Timothy Caulfield CMAJ Apr 2023, 195 (15) E552-E554; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.221543 The term “lockdown” has become a powerful and perverted word in the infodemic about democracies’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdown, as used in public discourse, has expanded to include any public health measure, even if it places little to no restriction on social mobility or interaction. For example, a working literature review and meta-analysis on the effects of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality misleadingly defined lockdowns as “the imposition of at least 1 compulsory non-pharmaceutical intervention.”1 This working paper therefore conflated mandatory isolation for people with confirmed infections and masking policies with heavy-handed limitations on freedom of movement, and since it gained viral fame, it has helped fuel calls for “no more lockdowns.” This working paper has been highly critiqued and is less convincing than comparative assessments of health measures, like the Oxford Stringency Index.2,3 Here, we discuss the spread of misinformation on lockdowns and other public health measures, which we refer to as “lock-down revisionism,” and how this phenomenon has damaged trust in public health initiatives designed to keep people safer.
Anti-mask Woke-washing. The moral distortion of social justice. Chloe Humbert Aug 31, 2023 There has been documented evidence of people hatching plans to deploy this very wokewashing tactic, on purpose, in order to get caring, community minded people to unmask and spread the virus. Patrick Fagan is a psychologist who once worked for Cambridge Analytica,12 and was later linked to anti-vax groups in the UK13 via messages revealed in the HARTleaks. In an exchange from 2021 between Tanya Kymenko and Patrick Fagan, reported by Counter Disinformation Project in 2022, Tanya Kymenko asked “So, if the "pro-mask" are particularly concerned about equality then they might in theory be susceptible to a message on raising inequality as a direct result of NPI (lockdown). Is that a reasonable assumption?” and Patrick Fagan replied, “Yes exactly... They are wearing the face mask to be fair to others and to reduce harm... If messaging shows that face masks are unfair and harmful, that would be very powerful.”14 Patrick Fagan’s assertion was that mere messaging would be powerful - if people are made to believe it’s masking that is unfair. Patrick Fagan also had some other weird and wrong ideas, but there was no question that he was engaged in planning deliberate manipulation with propaganda against masking. And Tanya Kymenko was already equating all NPIs (Non Pharmaceutical Interventions) as the same as “lockdown” - which has expanded to include just wearing a mask.15 State Government Leadership Foundation openly bragged on social media about an advertising campaign that specifically targeted liberals to persuade them of the lie that masks supposedly do more harm than good.16 There is evidence that mask requirements are beneficial. But the State Government Leadership Foundation appears to have used old school advertising and simple repetition that uses the mere exposure effect, where people come to believe something simply because it seems familiar after hearing it a lot.17
Brookings - Three myths about the impact of COVID-19 on public education - Douglas N. Harris - August 29, 2023 Students may have worried about the pandemic generally and the health of their parents and grandparents, or they may have had to chip in more to support their families during the economic downturn initially triggered by the pandemic. To chalk this all up to instructional mode is to ignore that children lived through an unprecedented social, economic, and health calamity. It’s no wonder public schools stayed remote longer. They serve students who were at higher risk during the pandemic. Public schools also involve more complex staffing arrangements which were more brittle during the pandemic. Of course, we all could have done better in retrospect. Hindsight is 20:20, and with a once-in-a-century pandemic, foresight approaches blindness. But, no, we can’t blame the public school system and union leaders for student learning loss.
Wall Street Journal - Interest-Only Loans Helped Commercial Property Boom. Now They’re Coming Due. Landlords face a $1.5 trillion bill for commercial mortgages over the next three years. By Konrad Putzier, June 6, 2023 Many of the commercial landlords on the hook for the loans are vulnerable to default in part because of the way their loans are structured. Unlike most home loans, which get paid down each year, many commercial mortgages are known as interest-only loans. Borrowers make only interest payments during the life of the loan, with the entire principal due at the end. Interest-only loans as a share of new commercial mortgage-backed securities issuance increased to 88% in 2021, up from 51% in 2013, according to Trepp. Typically, owners pay off this debt by getting a new loan or selling the building. Now, steeper borrowing costs and lenders’ growing reluctance to refinance these loans are raising the likelihood that many of them won’t be paid back. Many banks, fearful of losses and under pressure from regulators and shareholders to shore up their balance sheets, have mostly stopped issuing new loans for office buildings, brokers say. Office and some mall owners are facing falling demand for their buildings because of remote work and e-commerce.
i could have skipped Comic Con Swell Entertainment Aug 5, 2025 "Overall, the issue with this event with me is that I just had high expectations because I've been wanting to come to this event since I was a child. Okay? And that's just the reality of it. I'm thinking this is like an incredible like uh the comic book convention, the Comic-Con nerd fandom event that's going to make you feel like like you have, you know, community and all this stuff. And then instead, you're dodging someone's sword hilt to the face. And also, you're just watching people be really stupid because they don't realize that you shouldn't stop in the middle of an aisle in front of someone in a wheelchair. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just one of those things where I'm just like, okay. And I don't know if this is one of those things have changed since covid type of events cuz I don't know. But most of my friends that have been post covid are the ones that told me you don't need to go to Comic-Con. Open to suggestions from people who went pre covid. You know, if you thought things are different than they are now. Alo just one of those things where it's like I can handle chaos. I've talked about this a lot. This isn't chaotic. This is just dumb packed. Like it's just one of those things where it's like this is so dumb. And maybe this is like a post covid thing cuz there's a lot of things that I just don't do anymore because of lockdown and things like that. And like the concept of like Yeah, I wore a mask most of this weekend partially because I'm around too many people to not be masking at most large events. Okay. Because I refuse to be a superspreader. Okay. I don't care what type of oh leftist little woowoo wearing mask. Get F’d bro. I don't care if it means me not getting sick. F it. I don't care. Everyone's always so nice to me, too. They're always like, "Thank you for masking." Like, that's really sweet of you. I am masking solely for selfish reasons. I don't want to get sick. That razor throat variant. Oh god, that sounds horrible. I don't want that. Ew."
First NATO scientific meeting on Cognitive Warfare (France) — 21 June 2021
Kandice Grossman; TigerSwan at Standing Rock: Ethics of Private Military Use Against an Environmental-Justice Movement. Case Studies in the Environment 31 December 2019; 3 (1): 1–7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/cse.2019.002139 During the movement, state and federal military forces worked alongside a private military and security contractor (PMSC), TigerSwan, hired by owners of the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners.
Fast Company - 09-18-2022 TECH Sarah Kendzior explains how conspiracy theories went mainstream Kendzior, author of the new book ‘They Knew,’ argues that rich elites like Donald Trump weaponize conspiracy theories as a way of deflecting attention from real crimes. BY Mark Sullivan People within these born-wealthy, rarified social circles are the ones not just with access, but who want to preserve their own place in the hierarchy. And to do that, they have to protect powerful actors. That’s bad enough in its own right, but when a crime cult gets into power, as was the case with the Trump administration, it means you’re playing PR flack for a lot of really dangerous individuals [involved in] very real conspiracies. Examples are the Epstein-Maxwell operation, the coup plot for Trump, and the January 6th attacks. Those are true conspiracies, as in people who got together, secretly planned them, carried them out, and covered them up. They don’t want to delve too deeply into that because it implicates people around them who were involved, not necessarily as people being directly involved, but as witnesses. And you sometimes see after the fact, when this horrific conspiracy is revealed as such, they will admit that they knew all along, and that’s part of where the title came from.
Strategic Public Health Messaging Drives Change June 23, 2025 | Grace Lee - ASSOCIATION OF STATE AND TERRITORIAL HEALTH OFFICIALS Effective public health messaging is essential to gaining support from decision-makers, health care providers, and communities. In public health, we rely on science and evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of policy and programs. However, when it comes to communications, simply presenting data is not enough — strategic framing and storytelling are keys to making public health topics more approachable and relevant to a range of audiences.
Baker, Justin T. MD, PhD; Baker, Edward L. MD, MPH. Leadership Practice—Delivering Clear and Inspiring Messages. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice 29(2):p 271-273, March/April 2023. | DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001706 The practice of public health leadership often centers around serving as a source of inspiration to others. Clear and inspiring messages are particularly needed in these times of uncertainty and conflict for those who practice public health on the front lines.
Dear academics… left-wing academics by meditationsfortheanxiousmind "Left-wing academics don't need the gym, they build their strength by pulling the ladder up on poor people, the same people who will never be invited to their think tank about wealth redistribution…"
Top historian: YES, Trump is TRULY DANGEROUS David Pakman Show Jul 21, 2025
The Seagulls Descend — Living in a shadow future vs. engaging with the present, and creating unmistakable, effective differentiators — both for ourselves and for our nation’s low-information voters. A.R. Moxon Jul 27, 2024 So often it feels as if we’re accepting the current media framework of speculation and prediction and punditry, not so much dealing with what is or contending for what should be but living in a bleak and unbroken shadow future, where everything is already decided, which frees us from the moral imperative to have to do anything. It’s just as freeing in a way to believe everything is doomed as it is to believe that everything will be fine; either way you don’t have to do much thinking or work, or even take the next step that will allow us to take the next step, however easy or hard or palatable or unpalatable that next step might be. So we behave as if we are political operatives, predictive wizards, demonstrating not our commitment to a better vision of the future by contending with reality here in the present and working for best outcomes, but rather our ability to know what will happen before it happens, so that when it happens we can say see? and if we are wrong, we just run on to the next topic, chasing seagulls.
PBS - Hacking Your Mind Richard Thaler: “And so I would often hear something like the following -- "Yes, yes. I understand that the people in your experiments and some of the people I know do foolish things, but in markets, then -- and then I claim..." They could never quite finish this sentence without literally waving their hands, and the argument is somehow if you choose the wrong career or fail to save for retirement, that the market will somehow push you back toward being rational. There's a reason why no one can make this argument without waving their hands, and that's because the argument is just silly. You know, if you don't save enough for retirement, what happens to you? You're poor when you're old. The market doesn't discipline you. Suppose people have a weakness for gambling. What's going to happen? Will people build casinos, or will they offer programs to help people curb their gambling addiction? Well, people have made a lot more money on casinos than on programs to stop gambling.”
Daniel Solove on Privacy, Technology, and the Rule of Law • The Tech Policy Press Podcast, Justin Hendrix / Aug 10, 2025 Daniel J. Solove: “There’s a lot of things with design that we know are deceptive, we know are harmful, and can be restricted or steered in the right direction. And that still leaves a gigantic sandbox with 80% of the space to do what they want, it’s just that we’re going to put some limits on that. So you mention free speech, and the first amendment and platforms and what do we do with that. I think it’s an incredibly complicated set of issues of how do we regulate what goes on in platforms. And it does involve free speech. But it also involves more than what we think is just pure speech because what we see on platforms is not just pure speech, it is speech that is architected. What we see on these platforms is influenced by algorithms behind the scenes that are designed to show us certain things and make other things harder to see. They’re designed to skew conversations in certain ways and to shape them. And so it is that we think that social media is our speech. But is it purely our speech? It’s really the speech of the companies who are actually taking what we’re saying and then using their algorithms to repackage it and push it out in ways that change the message, and direct the speech, and shape the speech. In fact the companies will admit to this, they will say that this is what they do. And so they say we are speakers, we want first amendment protections. So they run to the supreme court and say hey any type of regulation here is a violation of our right to free speech. We are speaking with these algorithms. The way we present stuff on social media and how we do it is our speech. They write this, this is their argument. Then though when it comes to instances where the algorithms do things that cause harm to people, then they turn around and say oh no it’s not our speech, we should be immune because it’s the speech of other people, it’s not us, someone else said it.”
