Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. A gunman murdered Charlie Kirk. Trump and his followers are exploiting the tragedy to attack their opponents.
The Daily Caller, a prominent conservative online publication, published an opinion column on Friday explicitly calling for violence in response to physical assaults on conservatives in America.
The column, written by editor at large Geoffrey Ingersoll and promoted near the top of the site, argues that “patriots” should use force because law enforcement officials do not adequately protect conservatives, including Charlie Kirk, the activist assassinated this month.
“Is this a call for violence?” the third paragraph says. “Yes. Explicitly it is.”
“I want blood in the streets,” he added in the column, which ran with the headline “Enough Is Enough … I Choose VIOLENCE!”
Adam Downer at The Daily Beast:
The column in the Caller, which was founded by Tucker Carlson and is now part-owned by Donald Trump Jr.’s business partner Omeed Malik, was also promoted to subscribers of its “State of the Day” newsletter.
Ingersoll’s call for violence came after Donald Trump and JD Vance claimed that it was the “radical left” that was responsible for growing political violence—a claim greeted with skepticism but which they have doubled down on.
Ingersoll, formerly editor-in-chief of the site and, like Vance, a one-time Marine public affairs writer, made clear that he was calling for “drubbings,” “cudgels,” and “extra-legal acts of violence”—even though the site later appended an editor’s note claiming his essay referred to “hypothetical instances of self-defense.”
