Daily Caller Editor ‘Literally’ Calls for Conservatives to Violently Attack Liberals: ‘I Want Blood in the Streets’

Screenshots via Daily Caller and Facebook.

The Daily Caller, the conservative website co-founded by Tucker Carlson, published an op-ed on Friday written by editor at large Geoffrey Ingersoll that “literally” called for conservatives to “choose violence” against liberals — eventually adding an editor’s note after hours of vociferous backlash.

The op-ed titled “Enough Is Enough … I Choose VIOLENCE!” was published Friday morning and minced no words in declaring Ingersoll’s support for acts of violence.

“Today, I choose violence,” he wrote. “Literally.”

“I know calls for violence are generally frowned upon,” he added. “The issue is … I simply don’t care.”

Ingersoll’s argument was that the “cost” of “anti-social and subversive behavior” was “not high enough,” and in his opinion, “some of this cost needs to be summary and ultra-violent.”

“The law is not enough,” he declared, and reiterated that he was literally calling for violence, writing, “Is this a call for violence? Yes. Explicitly it is.”

After several paragraphs cheering the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, cheering for the arrest of former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, adding that he hopes “the arrest and adjudication process absolutely ruins them” both, lamenting that Steve Bannon went to prison for four months, and calling for the investigation of “Ilhan Omar, AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], Barack Obama, and everyone in Clinton world” and for putting “Biden world through the wringer,” he complained about New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office recently dismissing of felony assault charges against a woman who was videoed punching in the face another woman, a pro-life advocate who was conducting a “man on the street” interview at the time of the assault. Ingersoll declared this showed “in liberal jurisdictions, it’s open season on assaulting conservatives.”

The solution, wrote Ingersoll, was to “[c]hoose violence” and do “[w]hatever works” to “reinstitute the cost,” offering several hypothetical scenarios in which he urged conservatives to “be wildly disproportionate” in their responses if liberal stole signs or vandalized property, urging them to “[t]urn it into an instant brawl,” “break bones,” and hire “the kind of security that has no qualms hospitalizing” people.

Ingersoll encouraged conservatives to commit these violent acts even if police were present — he did at least admit this would likely result in criminal charges — and added that he hoped to “[f]orce corrupt police to intervene.”

“I want blood in the streets,” he wrote.

The column concluded with an explicit rejection of legal remedies or other peaceful methods, and emphasizing his support for “disproportionate violent action”:

We must stop clutching our principles and shouting “stop.” They own the legal system. That will achieve nothing. We need action. Disproportionate. Violent. Action.

Pain and suffering.

We need to raise the cost of obviating the social contract. Measure it in blood if necessary. Change requires pain, and you’re either taking it or inflicting it.

I know which side I’m on, and I’m more than ready to start putting people in the shed.

Unsurprisingly, Ingersoll’s column drew sharp criticism, including from his fellow conservatives. He defiantly defended his call for violence, retorting with insults and Bible verses.

At some point Friday afternoon, the Daily Caller added an editor’s note to Ingersoll’s column (previous version archived here):

Editor’s Note: We’ve received a lot of feedback about this newsletter. At the Daily Caller, we publish a wide range of strongly-worded opinions. Robust debate matters, and the values of free expression require that we host voices with which readers may strongly disagree. That said, the Daily Caller does not condone violence in any form, especially political violence. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not represent the position of the Daily Caller. The examples outlined in the piece refer to hypothetical instances of self-defense, not political violence or extrajudicial mob action. We’ve spoken with the author, who reiterated that is his position, and explicitly rejects any incitement to violence.

The column seemed to have drawn significant traffic, at one point reaching at least the second-highest “trending” post on the site Friday afternoon.

Screenshot via Daily Caller.

It should perhaps be noted that the column was up on the Daily Caller’s website for hours, marked as “opinion” but without any disclaimer that these words, written by a Daily Caller editor and distributed as a newsletter under the Daily Caller’s brand, were not the position of the Daily Caller until the editor’s note was added hours later.

At the time of publication, Ingersoll’s column remains up on the Daily Caller’s website.

Mediaite reached out to the Daily Caller for comment and received a statement from editor in chief Dylan Housman, which is quoted below in full:

We all know that opinion columns represent the opinions of the person writing them and not the entire masthead that’s publishing them. This piece was originally marked as ‘Editorial’ because it is an editorialized piece rather than a news piece, not because it represents the beliefs of the Daily Caller as a whole.

That being said, I think it’s pretty clear when you read Geoff’s column that the scenarios he’s describing are self-defense. He was responding to a case in which Alvin Bragg failed to prosecute a woman who sucker punched a pro-life activist in broad daylight on the street, on camera. Geoff’s case is that said person should perhaps get punched back, because it’s pretty clear the cops aren’t going to do a damn thing about it. I don’t think that’s a radical suggestion.

Any attempt to paint this as a call for political violence or extrajudicial mob justice is totally dishonest and is an intentional misreading of what was published. We want to have a robust, interesting, edgy opinion section, but we’d of course never publish someone calling for violence simply over political disagreement.

This article has been updated after receiving a response to Mediaite’s request for comment.