Unrepentant racist in Steve Knight ad posted violent, bigoted images for years

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that GOP congressional candidate Steve Knight created a campaign video around a Santa Clarita man who had a long history of posting KKK images, racist memes and violent threats to Facebook.

What voters from California’s 25th congressional district haven’t see are the actual images.

Now, screenshots from the various Facebook accounts of David Brayton have surfaced, revealing the scale of his incessant posting of bigoted material.

Some of his posts claimed immigrant men wanted to “gang-rape hundreds of working-class white schoolgirls.” Others depicted African-Americans as deadbeats and murderers, and Muslims as practitioners of bestiality. Often Brayton called for the murder of liberals and protestors in general.

In the ad, Knight sits beside Brayton while the man wears a red shirt emblazoned with the word “Infidel,” a provocation against Muslims, and the Latin phrase, “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum,” which means “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The ancient term has been co-opted as a neo-Nazi rallying cry.

Knight’s claim to be unaware of Brayton’s beliefs and activity is undermined by the screenshot below, which shows Brayton tagged the congressman more than a month ago from the account that featured the highest volume of racist and violent posts.

During that same time, Knight’s campaign frequently broadcast the Brayton ad on television, and a Facebook post of the video collected more than 12,000 views.

This was the same account Brayton used to post images such as the one below, which featured the KKK “blood cross.”

Knight’s campaign initially resisted taking down the ad with Brayton, and only removed it from the congressman’s Internet and social media accounts a day later in response to community uproar.

Letters to the Editor published by the Los Angeles Times on Sunday expressed disbelief that Knight did not know Brayton’s history: Rep. Steve Knight’s excuse for featuring a bigoted constituent in his campaign ad doesn’t pass the smell test

Brayton maintained several accounts, in part because, according to his own posts, Facebook frequently locked down his pages for violating community standards.

When he returned, he often threatened the social media platform itself. (Facebook was responsible for deleting all of his accounts, the Los Angeles Times reported.)

One of his alternate accounts featured this stylized image of Brayton himself, holding two assault rifles, with the caption: “Hear me Islam, I will slaughter you with your own knife.”

Brayton’s public posts also included other shout-outs to Knight and his campaign.

But most of his posts were devoted to sharing explicitly racist, sometimes sexualized images expressing revulsion at the concept of mixed-race relationships

This account is the one that tagged Knight and featured the KKK symbol. Brayton frequently depicted African-Americans as lazy, untrustworthy, irresponsible, and even homicidal.

The comment below is one Brayton shared on multiple accounts by tagging his other username.

President Barack Obama was a common target of his contempt.

White supremacy was another frequent subject of Brayton’s pages. He posted a selfie of himself making the “okay” white power symbol on his account “David B Enghazi Brayton.”

The screenshot below features white nationalist Nathan Damiago, who led the hate group Identity Europa, punching a young woman in the face at a protest on April 15, 2017.

Brayton posted this meme two days later:

Violence against protesters was a common theme on Brayton’s pages, and he advocated for using a volunteer militia to suppress critics of President Donald Trump.

Brayton literally invoked Trump’s name to imply violence.

The meme below was posted Aug. 15, 2017, just three days after a white supremacist crashed his car into a group of counter-demonstrators at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.

The picture of the bloody, wrecked truck below was posted on Sept. 24, 2016, amid protests in Charlotte, North Carolina, over the police shooting of African-American man Keith Lamont Scott.

Braydon also advocated violence against the free press, as seen below in a post sharing a Breitbart article.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he stood by all of the images he shared: “He defended his call for putting CNN personnel before a firing squad, saying that what he viewed as the network’s subversive propaganda was tantamount to treason,” the Times reported.

Recently, Brayton shared gruesome photos mocking Saudi Arabia’s murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

He also shared conspiracy theories and a cartoon featuring Khashoggi arm in arm with Osama bin Laden to imply that Khashoggi deserved to be killed.

Hatred of Muslims in general was another common subject of Brayton’s posts, and he openly advocated for killing them.

This image features the burning of a Koran.

As with African-Americans, Brayton depicted men of color as predators who wanted to “gang-rape hundreds of working-class white schoolgirls.”

Brayton’s rage at immigrants and Muslims was not just reserved for men.

Other posts often suggested that Muslims engaged in beastiality.

Brayton’s other interests included spreading hatred and fear of immigrants.

Violence against Democratic leaders was all over Brayton’s pages, with multiple posts calling for the execution of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

One image of actress and talk show host Whoopi Goldberg at a protest was doctored to feature her wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon of Obama committing suicide.

Brayton also posted obscene memes about California Senator Kamala Harris, referring to her as a “whore.”

Brayton’s scorn was not restricted to Democrats.

He also mocked Sen. John McCain’s cancer diagnosis and posted a photoshopped image of Trump force-feeding McCain’s daughter from the late senator’s severed head.

One commenter urged Brayton to post it directly on Meghan McCain’s Twitter feed to ensure she saw it.

The Los Angeles Times article reported: “In September 2017, Brayton wrote, ‘Perhaps all Jews on television should wear the ‘sign’ in this last photo … just to make sure the audience knows … wink wink.’ The photo showed a yellow Star of David inscribed with the German word ‘Jude’ — the badge that Nazis forced Jews to wear during World War II.”

The images from Brayton’s account also feature disturbing messages about public figures who are Jewish.

Among the cache of screenshots, only a few appeared to be driven by LGBTQ bigotry.

Although he posted the KKK symbol, it’s unclear whether Brayton is an official member of the group.

He also posted shots from other organizations categorized as extremist organizations by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which works with the FBI to track hate groups.

Brayton shared the image above, which is the symbol of the Three Percenters, which the SPLC calls an “anti-government” organization. The Anti Defamation League also calls the Three Percenters an “extremist group,” along with the Oathkeepers.

Brayton shared an image of that group’s patch, too.

Brayton was also incensed by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s Black Lives Matter protest of kneeling during the national anthem to raise awareness of police killings of innocent African-Americans.

With Kaepernick banished from the league, Brayton posted images of a white man in blackface masquerading as the football player and holding a sign that implied he was willing to perform a sex act for money.

One of Brayton’s most recent posts invoked the bizarre, debunked conspiracy theories of “Q-Anon,” which have fueled paranoia in alt-right social media circles, and included accusations against Jews he claimed “were NOT Jewish at all.”

Apart from enthusiasm for Steve Knight, the only other political figure to consistently earn praise from Brayton was Donald Trump himself.

Shortly before Facebook deleted his pages in the wake of the Los Angeles Times article, Brayton shared an image of Trump and implied that the recent spate of mail bombs directed at Democratic leaders was a false flag hoax.

As of now, Brayton’s Facebook pages are all offline, but he remains active on Twitter. For the past several days, he has bombarded the Los Angeles Times with taunts, tagging the journalists who wrote the articles as well as Knight challenger Katie Hill.

Tagging the writer of the article, Brayton continues to post Ku Klux Klan imagery.