How Trump’s 11th hour ‘they/them’ ad helped clinch his victory

The guy who inspired the famous “they/them” election ad believes it was instrumental in securing President-elect Donald Trump’s win.

For the unaware, the ad was a last-minute campaign advertisement in which a narrator bluntly said, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”

Watch the ad below:

The man who inspired the ad is Terry Schilling, the president of the American Principles Project.

Speaking with Fox News, Schilling said he started pushing for these sorts of trans-related ads as early as 2019 but that back then it was “too premature” to make the sort of waves it’s making now.

That changed with the introduction of the Biden-Harris administration, which went full-bore in promoting trans ideology, thus making it much, much, much easier for the right to attack the left over the issue.

And thus, for this election, the American Principles Project spent tens of millions on trans-related ads. Schilling even reportedly went to Mar-a-Lago to personally encourage Trump to lean in on this issue.

“The cue of giving sex change procedures to inmates is so radical, it’s so extreme, and it’s one of those issues that touches on not just the culture war, but the economy, too,” Schilling said. “You have a lot of families that are hurting, they’re struggling to put food on the table.”

“They’re struggling to be able to afford to send their kids to a decent school where they can learn to read and write properly, and they’re scrapping all their pains together, and then they see that their government is paying to give people that committed very serious crimes that are in federal prisons sex change procedures that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he added.

Continuing his remarks, Schilling praised Trump for coming up with the “they/them” ad.

“Trump gets so much credit,” he said. “I have heard from several people that that maniac-madman-genius actually came up with that closing line of, ‘Kamala Harris is for they/them, Donald Trump’s for you.’ He’s so good at the branding.”

He added that his organization fundraised a record $18 million this year, up from $12 million last year.

“He highlighted that this funding has driven extensive research, ad production, and messaging guidance, which has reportedly influenced Republicans to focus on transgender issues in campaign ads,” Fox News notes.

Republicans altogether reportedly spent almost a quarter of a billion dollars on trans-related ads.

As for the American Principles Project, last year it produced an ad featuring women’s rights activist Riley Gaines promoting Kentucky GOP gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron over Democrat candidate Andy Beshear.

Last year, the organization also released a post-2022 election report arguing that Republicans performed so poorly in 2022 (compared to what was expected) because they’d neglected to focus on trans issues.

Then this past summer, the organization announced an $18 million ad campaign of its own focused exclusively on trans issues.

“We spent over seven figures on polling and focus groups and message testing, and we’ve been passing it out, beating our heads against the wall with candidates up and down the ballot — and 2024 was the year that it finally broke through,” Schilling said.

The ad campaign was perfectly timed.

“In June, health officials in the Biden administration urged international transgender health nonprofit, World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), to omit the age limit in its guidelines for transgender surgical procedures for adolescents – and succeeded – according to unsealed court documents,” Fox News notes.

Schilling is confident about the future.

“Donald Trump was elected in small part, at least, to help fix the gender issue with our kids [and] get this stuff out of our schools, like what he’s pledged to do,” he told The Texas Tribune in a statement.

“He was very clear and open with the American people about what he wanted to do when he got in office, and so I would be shocked if he doesn’t do anything on this,” he added.

Vivek Saxena

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