When it seems like the level of absurdity can’t get any higher in the context of the 2020 election and its aftermath (the infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping conference, anyone?!), the world proves us wrong.
This time, people on the internet have busted Republican Dean Browning, a white man who ran and lost in the 2020 Republican primary for US House Pennsylvania District 7, for tweeting “I’m a black gay guy” from his official account. The now-deleted and archived tweet is as surreal as it gets, and it just shows how far some Republicans are willing to go to throw some serious shade on Democrats.
So what happened? Well, Twitter users believe Dean forgot to switch his official account to his Democrat-shaming alter ego account where he’d embody a black and gay guy whose life under Obama changed for the worse. But people online have seen things and all, and you can't expect them to stay oblivious to such an incident. If there was an award for a first-class piece of wrong account action, you need not guess who’d be the winner.
The Republican Dean Browning, who ran and lost in the 2020 Republican primary, is known to be active on Twitter
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But people suspect Dean forgot to switch his official account when he posted this tweet
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The Republican former Lehigh County commissioner, who lost a congressional primary this year, describes himself “a proud pro-life & pro-2A Christian conservative dedicated to enacting common sense solutions to Keep America Great” on his official Twitter account. After joining the platform on December 2015, Dean Browning now has 52.8K followers.
Considering Dean’s presence on social media, it surely came as a surprise when he posted the now-deleted tweet. The infamous tweet was posted in response to one Twitter user who criticized President Donald Trump for destroying Obama’s administration's accomplishments. The tweet quickly went viral and was ranked No.2 on a list for trending Twitter topics.
And it got picked up by Twitter users immediately
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People on social media quickly came up with rather sinister explanations, claiming Dean had meant to tweet from a fake account. But Dean soon had an explanation at hand when he tweeted “I was quoting a message that I received earlier this week from a follower," except most people were not buying it.
He also shared a video featuring a man who stated: "... I am indeed a gay, black man. The message that you saw on Dean's Twitter was posted—I don't actually 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."
But the account that shared the video backing up Dean’s defense was suspended by Twitter for violating their rules.
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People suspected that the fake account was supposed to be "Dan Purdy," who looks a lot like Patti Labelle's son
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Other people suspected Dean could have hired a fake actor
Later, Dean tweeted this explanation of the incident
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