The modern Democrat Party is crawling with radical socialists posing as everyday Americans who are just concerned about the plight of the average citizen.
Beneath the surface: Partisan hacks who espouse views so extreme that they feel like they need to be scrubbed from the Internet to hide them from voters.
One swing state candidate’s vile takes were just exposed by CNN. And he is not only close to AOC — he founded the organization that propelled her career.
William Lawrence is the Democrat nominee in a competitive House race in Michigan.
CNN did an unimaginable thing to him: It engaged in a random act of journalism and exposed his deleted social media posts.
Here is how K-File’s Andrew Kaczynski broke the story:
William Lawrence, the Democratic nominee in one of the country’s most competitive House races in Michigan, deleted hundreds of old social media posts in which he embraced police and prison abolition, called for nationalizing fossil-fuel companies to end their production, attacked moderate Democrats and argued for a “fundamental overhaul” of the Constitution.Other deleted posts show Lawrence writing “f**k” the nuclear-family home and calling it an “isolating, individualistic, violent way of organizing society,” envisioning “a world of free and open migration,” and calling to “Abolish the Senate.”
Lawrence even wrote a song inspired by moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s resistance to Democrats’ climate agenda: “Our generation says f**k you for everything,” Lawrence wrote in lyrics he posted in December 2021. “Hurry up and die so that we can get started.”
The deleted posts, most of which have not been previously reported and came under a previous Twitter handle, stretch back years to when Lawrence, now 36, was building his career as a progressive organizer as an original co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, helping propel the Green New Deal into Democratic politics in 2018.
If this seems like a familiar origin story, it's because it overlaps with that of a high-profile Democrat politician who many believe is posturing for a 2028 presidential run.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is also "reimagining" her public image to be far more moderate than her documented radical socialist views suggest.
Lawrence helped build the political organization at the center of the Green New Deal movement. He co-founded Sunrise alongside Varshini Prakash, Sara Blazevic, Victoria Fernandez and Guido Girgenti. He served as the group's development director and later its director of strategic partnerships.
That history leads directly to Ocasio-Cortez. After Democrats recaptured the House in November 2018, Sunrise activists staged the now-famous sit-in at incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office demanding a select committee to pursue a Green New Deal. Ocasio-Cortez, then a newly elected congresswoman, joined the demonstration and helped turn it into a national spectacle.
Here is how Sunrise Movement touted the sit-in:
In 2018, we ran our first electoral program and elected candidates across the country – including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member who finally represented our generation. One week later, we planned a sit-in in Speaker Pelosi’s office. Now that young people had elected Democrats in record numbers to take back the House, we knew it was time to demand more from our leaders on climate.That day, we set a new agenda for the Democratic Party in the House, and our movement took off. Suddenly, the Green New Deal was everywhere. Thousands of young people across the country stood up in the fight against climate change and joined hubs. We went from one dozen hubs to over 100 by the end of the year. And we forced over 100 members of Congress to sign on to the Green New Deal resolution.
The sit-in became one of the defining moments of the new Democratic left. Sunrise suddenly had national attention, Ocasio-Cortez became the congressional face of the Green New Deal, and the proposal soon became a major issue in Democratic politics.
And their political relationship isn't ancient history. Lawrence was back on the same stage with Ocasio-Cortez this summer.
On July 19, Lawrence appeared at a major progressive rally in Lansing alongside Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders and now-Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. The official event announcement billed Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and El-Sayed as the featured participants and Lawrence as a special guest.
CNN's report on the deleted posts prominently carries a photograph of Lawrence with Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders and El-Sayed at the event.
Ocasio-Cortez did not formally endorse Lawrence at the event. In fact, Michigan Advance reported that she didn't mention him during her speech and left the stage as he arrived for the final appearance.
Asked about it afterward, Ocasio-Cortez said she was “always careful before I issue any endorsements” and explained that withholding one wasn't necessarily a rejection. Hmmm.
But the broader political connection is documented: Lawrence helped found the organization that worked with Ocasio-Cortez to make the Green New Deal a national cause, and eight years later they were appearing at the same progressive campaign event in Lawrence's home state.
Many of the deleted posts CNN discovered weren't college-age musings from before Lawrence entered politics. They came when he was as an established left-wing organizer.
In 2021, Lawrence praised the Minneapolis activist group Black Visions for bringing the country “nearer to a world without police and prisons.” The following year, he called for the “forced nationalization” of fossil-fuel production. He also urged President Joe Biden to “end the coal industry” by executive order.
He wrote about imagining “a world beyond the nation-state and capitalism,” declared that “Racial capitalism is the problem. Empire is the problem,” and promoted “free and open migration.”
Lawrence's affiliations continued well beyond Sunrise. He was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America until this summer, telling CNN last month that he had allowed his membership to “lapse” in July. Sanders and Rep. Rashida Tlaib have endorsed his congressional campaign.
Lawrence now says some of his old views no longer represent him.
“Like many millennials, I've done my fair share of thinking out loud on the internet,” Lawrence told CNN. “I've been clear that I disagree today with some things I posted in the past. I don't support defunding the police or open borders.”
It’s a familiar refrain. One we’re likely to hear from AOC ahead of the 2028 election.
“Woke 1 was crazy”
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 10, 2026
“Rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric they would use today”
AOC is already walking back and trying to rewrite history on her radical positions to appear moderate to she can run for president
We will never let her forget pic.twitter.com/dbyLAmI8dS
Woke 1 was crazy, amirite?
