Mayor David Faber’s Social Media Round-up:
The Joke’s On Who?
In August 2022, incendiary events in Port Townsend brought social media posts by then 39-year-old Mayor David Faber to national attention. Internet writers began discussing tweets like this:
And this one, publicizing his ultra-low Rice Purity Test score (17/100) to demonstrate that, as “legally-required,” he is a “pervert and deviant”:
The Rice Purity Test is a 100-question survey that asks about a person’s experiences with potentially “risky” behaviors such as drugs, alcohol, sex, crime, deceit, and other deeds considered immoral or non-virtuous. Scored out of 100 possible points, the lower the score, the less virtuous. The average score is 60-75.
Another, about having sex with dead chickens:
At the October 17, 2022 Port Townsend City Council meeting, Port Townsend Free Press founder and ongoing contributor Jim Scarantino read some of the above tweets into the public record. While those social media posts may be old news to some, the story isn’t over.
Nearly a year later Scarantino was back with an update at the September 11, 2023 city council workshop. There were new tweets to be added to the record.
Following the workshop, Scarantino recounted on the Free Press‘s Facebook page:
“He makes such comments on a Twitter account that right up front identifies him as Mayor of Port Townsend. And he holds himself out as the Mayor while discussing city business on the same account where he also writes about masturbation. Not nice stuff to read, but this is the Mayor’s behavior in a public forum where he is representing the city of Port Townsend.”
Faber’s Twitter/X banner today is pictured below. The “cold feet” handle and licking dog are gone, replaced by a new photo, his political yard sign, and “Mayor of Port Townsend, WA” identifier.
Should we care about the tweets of David J. Faber, Mayor of Port Townsend? Why continue to bring them up? How did we get here?
The Backstory
The dive into Faber’s online persona began after the Free Press broke the story in August 2022 of 80-year-old Julie Jaman’s expulsion by the YMCA from our community swimming pool. That’s old news, too, but revisiting what unfolded provides important context for the mayor’s social media conduct.
Naked in the women’s showers after a swim, Jaman was shocked to hear a male voice. She became more upset when she looked past the flimsy shower curtain and saw a teenage boy in a woman’s bathing suit “helping” little girls with their swimsuits.
She didn’t know that Clementine Adams was a Y employee, a quite-obviously biological male who just months earlier had announced a new identity as a transgender woman. Jaman asked “Do you have a penis?” and demanded that Adams get out of the locker room. When management intervened, rather than de-escalate the situation, naked Jaman, dripping wet, was told that her reaction had been “discriminatory”. On the spot, she was banned for life from the pool she had been swimming in for 35 years.
The story went internationally viral, putting a magnifying glass on our little town. As the saga unfolded, Faber’s response as Port Townsend’s mayor brought him under intense scrutiny.
Less than a week after Jaman’s ouster, dozens of citizens showed up to give public comment at the next city council meeting. Two distinct groups spoke.
Those upset about Jaman’s treatment voiced discomfort over allowing biological men in women’s spaces. They requested that the city honor traditional safeguards for women and girls and work to develop a solution to meet all pool users’ needs. Some asked, why not allow for privacy and designate an all-gender space?
The second group attacked the first. Those asking to be safeguarded, they said, were “transphobes” and “haters”. “Trans women ARE women,” they chanted.
None of the concerns over Jaman’s abrupt lifetime ban or requests for privacy solutions at the city pool were addressed by the council. Instead, at the conclusion of public comments, Mayor Faber lectured that Port Townsend was a welcoming community, sternly rebuking those requesting consideration for private spaces as hateful and discriminatory. (Mayor Deflects Backlash Over Men in Women’s Showers at YMCA, Virtue Signals About Trans Rights Instead)
The only discussion among the council was a proposal to develop a statement “to formally support the Y and its staff.” In the days that followed, that “statement” was elevated to a Transgender Proclamation.
Local women’s rights advocate Amy Sousa tweeted the proposed proclamation out to her national audience and attempted to have an exchange with Mayor Faber. He responded with juvenile taunts and name-calling. Rather than discussing Sousa’s concerns, much like the group chanting at city council, Port Townsend’s mayor called her a transphobe.
“The transphobes have found me,” he tweeted out in response to her post. “Fuuuuuun”.
That wasn’t enough, there was more to say. Five minutes later he re-posted Sousa’s tweet that shared the proclamation, and responded with the nonsensical dismissal “Zoopity boop.”
“The mayor of Port Townsend doesn’t seem to think my concerns deserve respectful consideration,” Sousa wrote. “I think women/girls deserve the sex based provisions that our foremothers battled for centuries to attain, privacy, safety, & dignity for our BODIES.”
She later told media, “This is a little ridiculous to me that this is how the mayor is choosing to respond to women and girls who have legitimate concerns… he’s not taking these concerns with seriousness and the gravity that I think we are due.”
Sousa then organized a press conference to be held prior to the next City Council meeting, when the proclamation would be up for public comment. That event across from City Hall (covered in multiple Free Press articles – 1, 2, 3) brought yet more national attention after trans activists violently attacked the predominantly elderly women speaking, while Port Townsend Police watched passively from across the street. Citizens begging for help were told orders had come “from above” not to intervene.
Those who participated in the event were intimidated and assaulted; some were injured. They were locked out of the council meeting as well, unable to give public comment. Meanwhile inside City Hall, Mayor Faber descended from his dais and took off his mask to ceremoniously read the “welcoming” proclamation to a local trans “leader”.
Following the mob attacks and proclamation reading, a later tweet by Faber further inflamed the situation: “What an incredible night. The Port Townsend community showed up in beautiful fashion,” he wrote. “Tonight reminded me of why Port Townsend is home.”
While the police stood guard outside City Hall under orders “from above” to protect the mayor and council — not the citizens — during their special proclamation, below is what “home” had become for people speaking across the street that evening. “The Port Townsend community that showed up in beautiful fashion” looked like this:
How the Mayor Has His “fuuuuuun” on Social Media
This series of explosive events reverberated far and wide. Writers covering women’s issues took notice. After his puerile responses to Sousa and his “beautiful community” tweet the night of the assaults, they wondered what else Mayor Faber was broadcasting online.
Former New York Magazine and Penthouse contributor Mandy Stadtmiller was among the national writers to bring attention to Faber’s social media posts. The day after the city-permitted women’s rights press conference drew violent assaults from trans activists while police stood watching with detachment under orders not to protect them, she asked:
But first out of the gate was Substack writer Mattie Watkins. “This was supposed to be fun and snarky,” she wrote, “but as I researched David J. Faber things got progressively weirder and more serious.”
Watkins was the first to republish the tweets at the top of this article. Along with his sex with dogs and dead chickens comments, and the post that mayors are required to be filthy and deviant, she discovered Faber defending actor Paul Reuben, aka PeeWee Herman. Reuben had been arrested for masturbating in public and charged with misdemeanor possession of child pornography in 2002.
Faber’s tweet responding to someone claiming that Reuben had been targeted as part of a sting operation was that “PeeWee did nothing wrong.”
Yet in addition to masturbating in public, Reubens had confessed to possessing 170 images of children in sexual acts and positions.
Watkins also tagged this post:
In a follow-up article she asked “What does that mean?”
Social media influencer Vaush describes himself as a “dirtbag leftist” with an online presence geared predominantly to radicalizing young people. Watkins documents his insulting, aggressive and misogynistic attitude toward women.
Typifying that attitude, she says, are statements like, “I wish this dumb bitch wasn’t in high school so I could fully go off on her.”
And demeaning tweets like:
While degrading women is a common theme in “Vaush politics,” he is equally “notorious” for comments advocating pedophilia and lowering the age of consent, Watkins said. He influences his mostly young audience with messages that endorse the legalization of child pornography.
“What does this mean for Mayor David J. Faber?” she asked. “Well, he isn’t a complete idiot and is not on record agreeing with these specific ideas from Vaush. However, he also hasn’t condemned them and continues to align himself with Vaush as a whole.”
Faber Looks Amused
At the October 3, 2022 Port Townsend City Council meeting, Rebel News reporter Katie Daviscourt posed some of these same questions during public comments.
Daviscourt quoted Faber’s tweets about bestiality and asked him if his alignment with Vaush reflected his moral views. She asked if “his history of inappropriate and controversial tweets are a good representation of an elected official.” The mayor did not answer her queries. The video of the meeting reveals only a grainy flash of Faber grinning as she quotes his tweet, “As mayor, I am legally required to be a pervert and deviant.”
She asked, does the City Council stand by his comments or denounce his behavior?
The only councilor to offer a public response to citizens’ call for the city council to censure the mayor — and in some social media discussions, to remove Faber from office — has been Owen Rowe.
“I fully support our Mayor David Faber,” Rowe said. “I am entertained by his Twitter account, and do not understand that as in any way representing the city organization.”
Watkins notes that Vaush and his supporters “love to hide behind the ‘it’s a joke’ excuse.”
The File Grows
More of Faber’s online “humor” soon surfaced.
His post of a selfie wearing eye liner and mugging inside what appears to be a public toilet stall:
Delight over wasting a church’s money on prayer card mailings to his deceased mother:
And new tweets defending PeeWee Herman’s possession of child pornography and public masturbation. “I’ll say it again,” he wrote, “Pee-Wee Herman did nothing wrong.”
“In another tweet,” Scarantino informed council, “he said he adored this pedophile [PeeWee] for never losing his childlike innocence and joy.”
And “earlier in the summer,” Scarantino added, “between discussing housing policy and promoting one of the Financial Sustainability videos done by the city,” Faber was inspired to re-post someone else’s musings about masturbation:
“[I’m] thinking about that guy who died beating off at Pompeii” the post said. To which Faber commented, “Every day. Sometimes twice.”
“I don’t know what it says about the city that for over a year the council has known about this conduct and has not said one word about it,” Scarantino told council. “And as I pointed out over a year ago, were any other city employee to engage in such conduct, you’d have a very hard time disciplining them with your mayor doing things like this.”
“This is the mayor. The mayor,” Scarantino later emphasized. Not only does Faber use his Twitter account to discuss city business, “he even communicated with at least one state legislator.”
“Seriously, imagine if a police officer—make it the police chief—identified himself by his public position, then said that stuff. But apparently they approve of his conduct enough to let it go, even when reminded that he was still at it a year later.”
“What does that say for Port Townsend and the government of this city?” Scarantino asked the council.
Are all of our elected officials who chose to place young Faber in the mayor’s chair entertained by his mix of city business with tweets about bestiality, perversion, deviance, and the joy of masturbation? Do all of them find his public defense of pedophilia funny?
