A popular TikTok content creator was driven to tears when they appeared in a new campaign ad released by Donald Trump.
James Rose, who is genderfluid, broke down in a TikTok video recounting how they saw the offending ad, which features a distorted clip of them with fellow TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney from the trans star’s diary series “Days of Girlhood.”
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Through sobs, Rose reveals, “I saw it, and I kind of fell apart.”
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“I didn’t want to tell you that because I didn’t want to look weak,” Rose shares. “And it’s like, oh my God, that’s so stupid, I cry on the internet all the time. Like, why is today any different?”
The admission stood in stark contrast to the message of xenophobia projected by the Trump campaign. Framed as an “Invasion of America,” the dystopian call to arms is directed at a sea of white faces to take America back from forces of evil “killing millions.”
“The global elitists who send your kids to war, who tell you a woman is a man and that a man is a woman, who teach your children their country, their faith, their beliefs, are a lie — they have corrupted every facet of American government, weaponized it against you.”
Bookended by images of war and middle schoolers parading rainbow-themed school work, Rose and Mulvaney appear after a sign for a gender-neutral bathroom, illustrating what Trump is selling as the destruction of Christian America by Jews and gays.
It’s anything but subtle.
Seeing the spot drove Rose to tears.
“I didn’t want to share this either, but I felt shame,” they confessed. “I felt shame about being public about my transition, being bubbly and fun and loving life, and I thought ‘Oh, maybe if I were just different, then maybe I wouldn’t have, like, failed my community in this way.’”
“I know that they want me and people like me to feel shame about our transness,” Rose continued. “That is a goal. They want to eradicate us, and if they make examples of people like me and my gorgeous friend Dylan, they are one step closer to that eradication.”
Key to that goal for Trump is portraying America as “a nation in decline,” “failing,” and “weak.”
According to the indicted and twice-impeached former president, only “one man, one movement can change all that for us. Put America and the middle class first, and put the globalists, the elitists, the corrupt — IN THEIR PLACE.”
“Bring back pride…” the ad malevolently teases, “and the American dream, to let the world know: don’t mess with US.”
By the end of their own message to America, Rose had brightened, even while admitting they were “a wreck.”
“We are beautiful, we are wonderful, and we are part of the fabric of society,” they said. “No matter how hard they attack us, I will love us twice as hard, and I’m not the only one.”
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