We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again.
Think.
Before.
You.
Tweet.
Fresno City Councilman Steve Brandau raised a few eyebrows on social media over the weekend when he retweeted a nationalist, anti-immigrant post from Sweden. But the councilman said that doesn’t reflect his own opinion.
The original Dec. 14 Twitter post from Peter Imanuelsen, a self-described right-wing political commentator who goes by @PeterSweden7, bemoaned the effects of immigration on the Scandinavian nation and criticized the Swedish government’s immigration policies. “The Swedish gov are (sic) deliberately trying to erase my home and culture,” Imanuelsen wrote. Brandau retweeted Imanuelsen’s tweet without comment. On Monday, he explained that the post caught his attention because of his own interest in “the collapse of European culture.”
As the Fresno Bee notes, Peter Imanuelsen has some pretty repugnant views.
“I don’t like fascism, but I think Hitler had some good points,” he tweeted on Aug. 7, 2016. “I am actually pretty certain that the holocaust never actually happened.”
Brandau says he had no idea.
“I’m just like everybody else; I check in maybe a half dozen times a day on Twitter and see things other people have tweeted.”
He doesn’t follow Imanuelsen on Twitter and his tweets don’t equal endorsements. It says so in his bio.
That wasn’t sufficient for Fresno Democrats, who pounced on Brandau for giving the European white nationalist a platform.
Brandau doesn’t seem bothered.
“I don’t respond to local antifa types reacting to my tweets,” he said. “It’s like water off a duck’s back.”