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A former Pennsylvania candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives caused a stir Tuesday on Twitter after tweeting that he was “a black gay guy,” when he is, in fact, a white man.
Dean Browning, a former Republican candidate in the 7th Congressional District and a former Lehigh County commissioner, claimed in a tweet — apparently in response to another Twitter user — that he was gay, Black, a supporter of President Donald Trump and that “everything is so much better” under Trump.
The tweet, posted at 10:48 a.m., has since been deleted.
“I’m a gay black guy and I can personally say that Obama did nothing for me, my life only changed a little bit and it was for the worse,” the tweet said. “Everything is so much better under Trump though. I feel respected — which I never do when democrats are involved.”
Dean Browning, former Lehigh County comissioner who seems to have forgotten to log into his burner account, was about 2,500 votes away from being the GOP’s nominee in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional district this year. pic.twitter.com/ftiY68wae6
— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) November 10, 2020
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “The tweet quickly started trending, with multiple commentators postulating that Mr. Browning, who is white and in a heterosexual marriage, had a “burner account” — a social media account created so the user can post anonymously without having the post traced — and forgot to log into it before sending the tweet.”
Vox added: “To anyone who has spent enough time watching pro-Trump conservatives and #resistance liberals argue on the internet, it seemed extremely clear what had taken place. Browning was the owner of another Twitter account, one claiming to be a gay Black man who loved Trump, and he simply forgot to log in to it before posting the reply (this is often called ‘sock puppeting’ online). Immediately, users began to flood into the discussion, calling out Browning’s accidental exposure of his fake burner account.”
“Dean Browning, former Lehigh County comissioner [sic] who seems to have forgotten to log into his burner account, was about 2,500 votes away from being the GOP’s nominee in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional district this year,” Inside Elections reporter Jacob Rubashkin said in a Twitter post Tuesday.
Shortly after 4 p.m., Browning responded to the backlash, saying the post quoted one of his followers and apologized for the lack of context.
“Regarding the tweet that is going viral from my account — I was quoting a message that I received earlier this week from a follower,” he wrote. “Sorry if context was not clear. Trump received record minority votes & record LGBTQ votes. Many people won’t say it vocally, but do in private.”
Browning has since deleted the tweet and posted the following: https://t.co/gGEs0K1XT7
— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) November 10, 2020
Soon after, a video was posted to the Twitter account belonging to a man named “Dan Purdy” and was quickly retweeted by Browning.
Purdy claimed he was the person who sent the original message to Browning and that Browning accidentally posted it to his own Twitter account.
“The message that you saw on Dean’s Twitter, actually I don’t know how it was posted, but I did send it to him because I had a problem with how people of my race and sexual persuasion are treating Donald Trump,” Purdy said in the video.
@DanPurdy322 is an account with a cartoon of a Black man wearing a beanie as its avatar and a Trump 2020 logo as its header.
The account has a history of posting extremely racist and sexist remarks. Sample tweets include “Black ppl can’t count” and “black women will be the death of America,” among many others, in Purdy’s short time on the platform.
incredible stuff happening here pic.twitter.com/Fvrmoq5kTk
— jordan (@JordanUhl) November 10, 2020
Is this your totally real black gay conservative follower? pic.twitter.com/XSxgGjjxlc
— Don “Big Chooch” Moynihan (@donmoyn) November 10, 2020
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