2026-09-04T10:00:29.608Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
密歇根州一场竞争最激烈的国会众议院席位民主党提名候选人威廉·劳伦斯删除了数百条旧社交媒体贴文，其中他曾支持废除警察和监狱制度、呼吁将化石燃料公司收归国有以终止其生产、抨击温和派民主党人，并主张对宪法进行“根本性大修”。
其他被删除的贴文显示，劳伦斯曾写下“去他的”核心家庭，称其为“一种孤立、个人主义且充满暴力的社会组织方式”，还畅想“一个移民自由开放的世界”，并呼吁“废除参议院”。
劳伦斯甚至还写过一首灵感源自民主党温和派参议员乔·曼钦阻挠民主党气候议程的歌曲：“我们这代人对你说去你妈的一切，”劳伦斯在2021年12月发布的歌词中写道，“赶紧去死吧，这样我们才能开启新篇章。”
这些被删除的贴文大多此前从未被报道过，均来自劳伦斯之前使用的一个推特账号，其发布时间可追溯至多年前。现年36岁的劳伦斯当时正以进步派组织者的身份积累职业资本，他是“日出运动”的创始联合创始人之一，在2018年推动《绿色新政》进入民主党政治议程发挥了作用。
自8月赢得民主党初选以来，他如今已是密歇根州第7国会选区的民主党提名候选人，对阵寻求首次连任的现任共和党众议员汤姆·巴雷特。
密歇根州第7国会选区是全美最具代表性的众议院战场选区之一：唐纳德·特朗普总统在2024年的该选区得票率仅领先不到两个百分点，该选区此前的议员是现已当选民主党参议员的埃利萨·斯洛特金。
但劳伦斯过往的言论可能会让民主党夺回该选区的努力变得复杂，尤其是那些抨击党内温和派同僚的贴文，其中就包括斯洛特金。
2020年1月，劳伦斯攻击时任众议员斯洛特金，称自己“为有她这样的代表感到羞耻”，并指责她是“所谓的民主党人”，缘由是斯洛特金针对特朗普下令击杀伊朗少将卡西姆·苏莱曼尼的决定做出的回应，劳伦斯称她没有谴责特朗普。
此后，劳伦斯至少在部分早前立场上与自己划清了界限。他上月告诉《塞马福尔新闻》，自己过去支持2020年“ defund the police”（ defund the police，即“削减警察预算”）运动的贴文“与我如今的信念不符”。上月，他告诉CNN记者马努·拉朱，他已于7月“停止缴纳”美国民主社会主义者组织的会费。
他在进一步发给CNN的声明中为自己此前针对斯洛特金参议员的言论道歉，并表示自己不支持削减警察预算或开放边境。
“和许多千禧一代一样，我在互联网上也有过不少随口抒发想法的时候。我已经明确表示，我如今不认同自己过去发布的一些内容。我不支持削减警察预算或开放边境。我不同意自己之前针对斯洛特金参议员的言论，她一直严厉批评特朗普政府对伊朗发动的战争，正在为保障即将到来的选举的公正性开展至关重要的工作。我仍然坚定批评当前的政治现状，以及那些腐蚀我们的政治、让工薪阶层无法获得代表权的、令人发指的财富与权力集中现象。”
本届选举周期已有多名进步派候选人因清理社交媒体历史而受到审查。密歇根州民主党参议院提名候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德就因删除支持“削减警察预算”运动的贴文，以及此前被移除的暗示美式橄榄球存在种族主义的YouTube视频而遭到批评。
100段埃尔赛义德YouTube视频在参议院竞选期间被删除；竞选团队：旧视频“如今不再反映他的信念”
4:56 • 来源：CNN
同样在密歇根州，埃尔赛义德此前的民主党参议院提名竞争对手马洛里·麦克莫罗在CNN报道其删除数千条旧推文数月后暂停了竞选活动。
在威斯康星州，民主社会主义者弗朗西斯卡·洪在其被CNN挖出的已删除贴文成为竞选后期争议点后输掉了州长初选；而在纽约市，由美国民主社会主义者组织支持的达里亚利扎·阿维拉·舍维耶尔在CNN曝光其已删除账号中包含废除警察、监狱和边境的呼吁以及对共产主义的支持后，击败了资深众议员阿德里亚诺·埃斯皮列尔。
“没有警察和监狱的世界”
劳伦斯的意识形态主张远不止民主党内部斗争。
2021年，劳伦斯称赞明尼阿波利斯激进组织“黑人社群愿景”，称其“削减警察预算”运动让美国“更接近一个没有警察和监狱的世界”。
2022年8月，他主张应通过“更具对抗性”的策略逐步停止剩余化石燃料生产，写道“应当通过强制国有化实现这一目标，这应该是我们的诉求”。2021年10月，他敦促时任总统乔·拜登“承诺”通过行政命令“终止煤炭行业”。
2022年8月下旬，劳伦斯将自己的政治立场总结为“公开场合是社会民主党人，私下里是自由意志主义社会主义者”。
他也多次将矛头对准核心家庭。
2021年，劳伦斯在称赞集体生活时写道：“去他的孤立主义和核心家庭住所。”次年，他进一步将核心家庭称为“一种孤立、个人主义且充满暴力的社会组织方式”，并写道“我不想成为其中一员”。
几天后，劳伦斯辩称“父权制核心家庭”是“财富积累的物质基础”，因为财富继承通过男性家族线集中，同时他写道“酷儿家庭为团结和财富共享创造了物质条件”。
他的批判还延伸至美国的政治和经济秩序。
2020年的原住民日，劳伦斯感谢原住民作家和组织者，称他们帮助他“想象一个超越民族国家和资本主义的世界”。
“愿21世纪开启原住民千年纪元，”他写道。
在另一篇贴文中，劳伦斯宣称：“种族资本主义是问题所在。帝国是问题所在。”
2021年，他敦促读者“畅想一个移民自由开放的世界”，并对自己提出的“你是说，任何人都可以任意迁居？”这一问题给出了肯定的回答：“没错！”
劳伦斯如今已被删除的许多贴文也将矛头对准了民主党内部更多温和派成员。
2020年大选后，时任民主党众议员阿比盖尔·斯潘伯格批评“削减警察预算”和社会主义言论，劳伦斯将其评论斥为“耍脾气”，并警告称，“胆怯的民主党人”如果无法接受激进左翼，可能会“脱离民主党”。
在拜登总统的《重建更好未来》法案引发的另一场党内斗争中，劳伦斯警告，如果该法案未能在众议院通过，他将敦促进步派对保守派民主党人以及“党内那些相信他们的十足蠢蛋”采取“焦土政策”。
数月后，在回应一名温和派账号时，他写道“你他妈的蠢货”，指责该账号质疑为何共和党人在2022年中期选举前推翻了“罗伊诉韦德案”。
劳伦斯还质疑，如果意味着要牺牲自身价值观，民主党是否应该追求广泛的执政多数。
他写道，“作为一个坚守原则的少数党，好过作为一个无法执政的多数党”，并认为有时“分裂是为了团结出一支更强大、更团结的力量”所必需的。在另一篇贴文中，他宣称：“是时候让民主党内战全面爆发了。”
KFile: Swing-seat Democrat deleted posts envisioning ‘a world without police and prisons’
2026-09-04T10:00:29.608Z / CNN
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 callingto “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.
Since winning the Democratic primary in August, he’s now the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, running against incumbent Republican Rep. Tom Barrett, who is seeking to win his first reelection.
Michigan’s 7th is one of the country’s truest House battleground tests: President Donald Trump carried it by less than two points in 2024 and the district was previously represented by now-Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin.
But Lawrence’s past rhetoric may complicate Democrats’ ability to retake the district, especially those deleted posts which include attacks aimed at fellow Democrats from the party’s more moderate wing, including Slotkin.
In January 2020, Lawrence attacked then-Rep. Slotkin, writing that he was “ashamed to be represented” by her and calling her a “supposed Democrat” over her response to President Donald Trump’s decision to order a deadly strike on Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, saying she did not condemn Trump.
Lawrence has since distanced himself from at least some of his earlier positions. He told Semafor last month that his past posts supporting the 2020 “defund the police” movement “are out of step with what I believe now.” Last month, he toldCNN’s Manu Raju that he let his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America “lapse” in July.
He told CNN in a further statement he regretted his past comments on Sen. Slotkin and said he did not support defunding the police or open borders.
“Like many millennials, I’ve done my fair share of thinking out loud on the internet. 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. I don’t agree with my previous statement about Senator Slotkin, who has been fiercely critical of the Trump administration’s war in Iran and is doing essential work to protect the integrity of the upcoming election. I remain a staunch critic of the political status quo, and the obscene concentration of wealth and power that corrupts our politics and leaves working people unrepresented.
He’s one of a number of progressive candidates this cycle to face scrutiny over a scrubbed social-media history. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, has faced criticism over deleted posts supporting the “defund the police” movement, as well as since-removed YouTube videos in which he suggested football was racist.
100 El-Sayed YouTube videos removed amid Senate run; Campaign: old videos ‘don’t reflect his beliefs today’
4:56 • Source: CNN
Also in Michigan, El-Sayed’s one-time rival for the Democratic Senate nomination Mallory McMorrow suspended her campaign months after CNN reported that she had deleted thousands of old tweets.
In Wisconsin, democratic socialist Francesca Hong lost her gubernatorial primary after her deleted posts uncovered by CNN became a late issue in the race, while in New York City, DSA-backed Darializa Avila Chevalier upset longtime Rep. Adriano Espaillat after CNN uncovered a deleted account containing calls to abolish police, prisons and borders and embraces of communism.
‘A world without police and prisons’
Lawrence’s ideological arguments stretched well beyond Democratic infighting.
In 2021, Lawrence praised the Minneapolis activist group Black Visions, writing that its ‘defund the police’ campaign had brought the country “nearer to a world without police and prisons.”
In August 2022, he argued that remaining fossil-fuel production should be wound down through a “more confrontational” strategy, writing that it “should happen through forced nationalization and that should be our demand.” In October 2021, he pushed for then-President Joe Biden to “promise” to “end the coal industry,” through an executive order.
Later in August 2022, Lawrence summarized his politics as “social democrat in the streets, libertarian socialist in the sheets.”
He repeatedly took aim at the nuclear family home as well.
“F**k isolation and the nuclear family domicile,” Lawrence wrote in 2021 while praising communal living. The following year, he went further, calling the nuclear-family home an “isolating, individualistic, violent way of organizing society.” “I don’t want to be part of that,” he wrote.
Days later, Lawrence argued that the “hetero-patriarchial nuclear family” is a “MATERIAL foundation of wealth accumulation” because inheritance was concentrated through male family lines, while writing that “Queer families create MATERIAL conditions for solidarity and wealth sharing.”
His critiques extended to America’s political and economic order more broadly.
On Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 2020, Lawrence thanked indigenous writers and organizers who he said helped him “imagine a world beyond the nation-state and capitalism.”
“May the 21st century begin an indigenous millennium,” he wrote.
In another post, Lawrence declared: “Racial capitalism is the problem. Empire is the problem.”
And in 2021 he urged readers to “envision a world of free and open migration,” answering his own question — “You mean, ANYBODY can move ANYWHERE??” — with an emphatic: “Yes!”
Many of Lawrence’s now deleted posts were also attacks aimed at more moderate members of the Democratic Party.
Following the 2020 election, when Democratic then-Rep. Abigail Spanberger criticized “defund the police” and socialist rhetoric, Lawrence dismissed her comments as a “tantrum” and warned that “timid Dems” could “leave the Party” if they could not accept the activist left.
In another intra-party fight over President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, Lawrence warned that if the bill failed to pass the House, he urged progressives to go “scorched earth” on conservative Democrats and the “absolute rubes throughout the party who believed them.”
Months later, responding to a moderate account, he wrote, “You f**king morons,”for questioning why Republicans overturned Roe. v. Wade before the 2022 midterm elections.
Lawrence also questioned whether Democrats should seek broad governing majorities at all if it meant sacrificing their values.
He wrote that it was “better to be a minority party that stands for something than a majority party that can’t govern,” arguing that it was sometimes necessary “to divide in order to unite a stronger and more coherent force.” In another post, he declared: “It’s time for the Dem civil war to rage.”