When Salon reached out to Browning, he responded via email that his failure to make it clear that his viral tweet was a follower's quote was "an oversight on part" and that "there will be a video up shortly that will clear things up." Many Twitter users quickly pointed out that the account also had a history of posting racist and sexist statements like, "I love the taste of black girl fear" and "black women will be the death of America." The Dan Purdy account featured an illustrated avatar of a Black man in a black beanie and bright blue jacket. He included multiple screenshots of Purdy's frequent interactions with Browning's account. "You know who replies to Dean Browning a lot? 'Dan Purdy,' a gay black Trump supporter who joined Twitter in October," wrote Bump. Many people won't say it vocally, but do in private."īut then, in a now-deleted tweet, the Washington Post's Philip Bump found a contender for Browning's sock puppet account. Trump received record minority votes & record LGBTQ votes. "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.
Things are about to get much weirder.Īfter several hours had passed, Browning posted an explanation by way of an additional tweet. If this situation already seems bizarre to you, just buckle up. In this case, it seemed Browning had exposed an account on which he masquerades as a gay Black Trump supporter. A sock puppet account is an online identity used for purposes of deception by concealing its owner's real identity. Twitter users leapt on Browning's bizarre response, many speculating that it was obvious that he had forgotten to log into his "sock puppet" account. I feel respected - which I never do when democrats are involved."īrowning, who is a former commissioner in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, sent this tweet in response to one of his earlier posts, in which he said, "What Trump built in 4 years, Biden will destroy in 4 months." The tweet continued: "Everything is so much better under Trump though. On Tuesday afternoon, Pennsylvania politician Dean Browning - a white, heterosexual, self-described "proud pro-life & pro-2A Christian conservative" - tweeted, "I'm a black gay 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."