A Santa Rosa City Council candidate has retained a key Democratic endorsement after apologizing for years-old online posts that reveal frustration with Democrats and use of vulgar language that has been called out as transphobic and unprofessional.

Eddie Alvarez is endorsed by the Sonoma County Democratic Party in the District 1 race to represent the Roseland and South Park areas. The endorsement gives him access to the local Democrats’ slate mailers and helps Alvarez, a dispensary owner, stand out from his two competitors, electrical engineer Jorge Inocencio and neighborhood advocate Duane De Witt.

But there was a time — June 2016, to be specific — when Alvarez was feeling less than charitable toward the Democratic Party, which was then trying unsuccessfully to push former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into the White House, only to be foiled by Donald Trump, who ran as a Republican.

He shared on Facebook an image of a middle finger featuring, in block letters: “This lifelong Democrat says bye bye Democratic Party.”

“#F—Dem and the horse they rode in on,” he added in a caption to the post.

That sort of comment stands in stark contrast to Alvarez’s current campaign. He recently touted a campaign event in Roseland that included a walking tour of the district with Pat Sabo, the local party chairwoman.

“It was pretty much the frustration of being ignored,” Alvarez said of his post from four years ago, calling it “a poor choice of words. Thankfully, we moved beyond them.“

A second post from February 2018 criticized the #MeToo movement, in which Alvarez commented that he was calling “bullsh–” on the movement “because you’re walking the same path as every other disenfranchised group” and lamented that activists were “falling for the tired trick of getting you to invest your energy in protests” instead of trying to influence the world in other ways.

A third, apparently posted regarding the brief federal government shutdown of January 2018 likened vocal support for Trump at that time to “buying a hooker that’s walking around with his thing hanging out … yes, somebody is gonna get screwed, but you might be surprised on whose (sic) doing the screwing, and most importantly who is getting screwed.”