Donald Trump made a huge push to expand his support among Black men in the 2020 election. However, he only did 2% better in 2020 than in 2016 with the demographic.
Part of that strategy involved creating fake Twitter profiles of Black men who support Trump to convince others to join them.
Republican Dean Browning, a former commissioner in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania who recently lost his bid for the House of Representatives, got caught tweeting as a gay, Black man on Tuesday and things really went downhill from there.
On November 8, Browning tweeted, “What Trump built in 4 years, Biden will destroy in 4 months.”
Then, on Tuesday, someone argued back saying, Obama built what Trump takes credit for and Browning’s response was confusing at best.
“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,” he wrote. “Everything is so much better under Trump though. I feel respected — which I never do when democrats are involved.”
Wait, what?
Twitter user Karin Sung broke down the entire story perfectly.
She discovered that Dean Browning has a gay, Black Twitter alter ego named Dan Purdy and he forgot to switch accounts before tweeting his response.
First of all, impersonating someone of a different race to push Donald Trump’s political agenda is a pretty disgusting move. But Browning takes things a step further by saying racist things through his Black alter-ego, Dan.
After getting caught, Browning said he was “quoting a message” he received earlier this week
Then things got really weird when someone posing as Dan Purdy Tweeted a video defending Browning.
“Hey guys, my name is Dan Purdy and I am indeed a gay, Black man” the imposter said, adding that he has “a problem with how people of my race and sexual persuasion are treating Donald Trump.”
He then went on to say Trump hasn’t hurt anyone during his short time in office.
“So what’s the big deal?” fake Dan Purdy said. “I sent that message to Dean, he accidently posted it somehow and that’s the end of the story.
A little research showed that the man in the video isn’t Dan Purdy, but Byl Holte, the adopted son of singer Patti LaBelle.
The original video was blocked because the Purdy account was suspended. Sung later found it online.
Byl has a Medium page where he calls himself an “anti-feminist TV critic.”
Here’s Byl with Patti.
Wow, that story really got out of hand fast.
After all the craziness, Browning just keeps tweeting away.
