William Lawrence Campaign Kick-Off Featured a Registered Sex Offender
Progressive policy ambitions meet practical realities as Americans weigh costs and consequences.
William Lawrence thought he could scrub the internet of his old takes. It turns out the political graveyard has a long memory. In his case, the record shows the Democrat running for Michigan’s 7th District once called for **the abolition of the nuclear family**, calling it an "isolating, individualistic, violent way of organizing society.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
William Lawrence, the Democrat running for Congress in Michigan's 7th District, has some pretty radical views. He deleted a bunch of his old social media posts, including ones that called for the abolition of the nuclear family, as Lawrence believes it to be an "isolating, individualistic, violent way of organizing society." But what Lawrence can't erase are his ties to Deshawn Bailey, a registered sex offender who spent more than a decade behind bars for repeatedly raping his 12-year-old half-sister.
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
William Lawrence thought he could scrub the internet of his old takes. It turns out the political graveyard has a long memory. In his case, the record shows the Democrat running for Michigan’s 7th District once called for the abolition of the nuclear family, calling it an "isolating, individualistic, violent way of organizing society." That alone should tell voters everything about the worldview he's now trying to rebrand as mainstream.
But the deleted posts aren't the worst part. Lawrence's campaign kick-off featured Deshawn Bailey, a registered sex offender who served over a decade for repeatedly raping his 12-year-old half-sister. Bailey isn't some distant supporter who slipped in the door. He was there, at the launch event, as part of Lawrence's orbit. That's not an optics problem. That's a judgment problem. And it makes Lawrence's critiques of "violent" family structures feel less like theory and more like projection.
A sane campaign would have kept Bailey a mile away. Lawrence instead chose to be seen with him. If a Republican had a convicted child rapist at his kick-off, the coverage would be relentless and the demands for answers immediate. We should hold the Democratic candidate to that same standard. Lawrence can delete his social media history, but he cannot delete who he associates with. Voters in Michigan's 7th deserve a better explanation than silence, and a better option than this.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.