(New York) In a curious turn of events, Donald Trump was the first American presidential candidate to use non-binary neologisms in a television advertisement. But the proponents of so-called wokism can hardly be happy about this.
“Kamala Harris is for him/her. President Trump is for you,” the narrator intones at the end of an ad called “They/Them” and broadcast on loop during the football and baseball games that excite Americans just as some of them begin. to vote in advance1.
No other Donald Trump ad has been broadcast more often since the start of the presidential campaign. Despite its title, “They/Them” is not about non-binarity as such. The ad instead addresses an issue that Kamala Harris would prefer not to talk about at the end of the campaign: the rights of transgender people and, by extension, those of irregular migrants.
This is Donald Trump’s double whammy. Clearly, his campaign team believes this ad is worth gold. And several other Republican candidates, who are running for seats in the House of Representatives or the Senate, are making the same calculation. These days, they are increasing the number of ads attacking their Democratic opponents for their defense of the rights of transgender people.
In total, Republicans have spent more than $65 million on ads targeting transgender people, according to an analysis by the New York Times.
They hope not only to accentuate their advantage with the male electorate, but also to eat away at votes among women who are particularly concerned about the presence of trans women in school sport, a marginal phenomenon if ever there was one.
Gender transition of prisoners and illegal immigration
What sets Donald Trump’s ad apart from others is that it allows him to simultaneously evoke his favorite theme, that of illegal immigration.
The ad opens with a headline that a narrator reads in a contemptuous tone: “Kamala Harris Supports Taxpayer-Funded Prisoner Sex Changes.”
She continues with an interview dating back to 2019 where Kamala Harris defends this position before the director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
“All transgender inmates in the prison system would have access [aux opérations de transition] “, said the woman who was then in her first presidential campaign.
And the narrator of the ad interjects: “It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Even the liberal media was shocked that Kamala supported taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens. »
“Kamala is for him/her. President Trump is for you,” concludes the narrator of the ad, which shows Kamala Harris alongside Rachel Levine, the first transgender person confirmed by the Senate for a position in the federal administration, and Pattie Gonia, a drag queen.
Unlike several other negative ads, “They/Them” is based on proven facts, namely this interview dating back to 2019 and Kamala Harris’s responses to a questionnaire from a freedom defense group.
She had stressed the need to ensure that people “who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need”, including prisoners who want to change their sex. Because transition treatments constitute a “medical necessity”, she has often repeated.
Trump’s ad assumes that this position applies not only to detainees who have American citizenship, but also to detainees who are illegal immigrants.
“ [Kamala Harris] wants to perform transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison,” Donald Trump declared during the presidential debate on September 10 in Philadelphia.
During his rallies, the former president often returns to the issue of transgender people, which affects relatively few people.
In particular, he promises to put an end to “transgender madness” by banning “men” from playing women’s sports.
The Republicans, it should be remembered, have already unsuccessfully hammered home this theme during the 2022 midterm elections. Defenders of transgender rights and some Democrats are convinced that they will fail again in 2024 with their call “ to division, hatred and chaos,” in the words of a spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ group Human Rights Campaign.
Kamala Harris silent
Kamala Harris never addresses this subject during her speeches and neither in her ads. But she will probably have to decide on Tuesday.
That day, she had a meeting in Detroit with Charlamagne tha God and the other members of the team. Breakfast Cluba radio show normally broadcast from New York and which reaches 8 million listeners, most of them African-American.
On a recent show, Charlamagne tha God spoke about his visceral reaction to seeing Donald Trump’s ad during a football game.
“I don’t know if it’s the football backdrop, but when you hear the narrator say, ‘Kamala supports taxpayer-funded prisoner sex changes’ — that one line, I was like, damn, no, I don’t want my tax money to go to that. This ad is effective,” declared the influential host who, despite his support for Kamala Harris, very often criticizes the way Democrats attack Donald Trump.
Donald Trump’s campaign team was delighted with Charlamagne tha God’s reaction. She undoubtedly hopes that the host will corner Kamala Harris on this issue which she would prefer not to talk about and which could weigh unexpectedly on the outcome of the November 5 election.
Watch Donald Trump’s ad
Ambivalent Americans
Americans express sometimes contradictory opinions on transgender identity. According to a Gallup poll published last June, 51% of them believe that changing one’s sex is morally wrong while 44%, including 72% of Democrats, 46% of independents and 11% of Republicans, think it is morally wrong. acceptable. At the same time, more than six in ten American adults oppose laws prohibiting minors from receiving care aimed at affirming their sexual identity, according to the same poll.