If a Liberal Wrote This, They’d Be Fired INSTANTLY

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes

Episode: If a Liberal Wrote This, They’d Be Fired INSTANTLY
Date: September 27, 2025
Host & Guests: JVL and Andrew Egger

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Episode Overview

JVL and Andrew Egger dissect a provocative, openly violent editorial by Jeffrey Ingersoll (Daily Caller’s editor-at-large), specifically focusing on the asymmetric standards of political rhetoric and calls to violence between right-wing and left-wing media figures in America. The episode is a critical, often darkly humorous conversation about the broader willingness of right-wing media to condone, ignore, or even champion explicit calls to violence, and how media double standards fuel dangerous dynamics in American politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Climate of Political Violence & Its Treatment on Both Sides

• Opening Framing: JVL remarks on the ongoing national concern over political violence, recounting infamous moments from the Trump rallies to January 6th and the assassination of Charlie Kirk (00:45).
• Asymmetric Responsibility: Both hosts agree that, on the national level, mainstream liberals and Democrats have generally been responsible in their rhetoric, while examples of left-wing incitement are rare and minor ("small town mayors…800 person Pennsylvania town").
  • Andrew Egger: “The people who have been held up as the most grievous examples of left wing justification have been like small town mayors... There’s one of those more at the national level—Ilhan Omar—but hers was a clear condemnation of political violence." (02:33)

2. The Jeffrey Ingersoll Editorial: "I Choose Violence"

• The Editorial’s Source & Context:

  • JVL describes the Daily Caller as a substantial, but not top-tier, right-wing publication; not "an intern or one-off," but Ingersoll is former chief and current editor-at-large. (05:04)
  • The hosts discuss the outlet's evolution and seriousness relative to its right-wing peers (03:30–04:53).

• Open Advocacy for Violence:

  • JVL Reads Ingersoll:
    • “We need to reinstitute a public debt for antisocial and subversive behavior...Some of this cost needs to be summary and ultra violent. Is this a call for violence? Yes, explicitly it is." (05:04–06:25)
  • Andrew Egger: “Not just violence, but ultra violence. I wonder if Ingersoll means anything specific by that or whether that's just kind of a punch up word...” (06:25)

• Justifications for Violence:

  • Ingersoll frames violence as necessary due to a "corrupt" system:
    • “In corrupt legal scenarios...What do we do? Choose violence. We all know the government is not going to help you in your time of need. Especially a Soros sponsored government.” (06:36–07:33)
  • The hosts point out that Ingersoll offers no plausible deniability, making the editorial a rare instance of a mainstream right-wing figure explicitly calling for blood in the streets.

• Examples of Incitement:

  • Quotes from Ingersoll’s piece reveal explicit instructions for violent and disproportionate retaliation in public and private scenarios:
    • “Bring security with you that’s dying to dole out drubbings...I want blood in the streets.” (09:26–10:56)
    • “Book the kind of security that has no qualms hospitalizing her and people like her.” (09:26–10:56)

3. Double Standards and Hypocrisy

• Host Reflection:

  • JVL wonders aloud about the double standard: “Can you imagine what Fox News would say if the editor of the New Republic wrote a piece demanding 'I want blood in the streets?'” (10:56)
  • Discussion on how the right scrutinizes even minor perceived incitements from the left, yet seemingly tolerates far more egregious rhetoric on its own side.

• On Asymmetric Media Accountability:

  • JVL: “If some liberal magazine editor wrote this column, basically every Democrat with any sort of national ambition would be put on the spot and told to repudiate it. I think that editor would probably lose his job within an hour or two. ... This is the Daily Caller...This is a guy who was the editor and is now the editor at large saying explicitly that he wants blood in the streets.” (20:14–21:50)

4. The MAGA/Right-Wing Approach to Power and Violence

• Internal Contradictions:

  • Andrew points out that Ingersoll’s column is internally inconsistent:
    • “On one hand he’s calling for more and more law and order...and then on the other hand he says...the justice system is completely incapable...the only thing to do is get out there and start cracking heads. I don't really understand that.” (13:57–15:00)
  • The posture of being the lone "bold truth-teller" is critiqued as posturing that appeals to the basest instincts rather than real courage or principle.

• Fascism and Power:

  • JVL frames the editorial’s logic as essentially fascist—about pure power, not consistency:

    • “This is what fascism always winds up being. It’s just about power. ... There is no pause being given between 'wait, shouldn’t we use the law' vs. 'shouldn't we just bash heads?'” (17:08)

  • Both discuss how the right supports state violence when perpetrated by their "side," but is outraged when the same actions are taken against their movement (e.g., January 6th), concluding it's not about principle but about might making right (17:08–20:14).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• JVL:

  • "Is this a call for violence? Yes, explicitly it is... There is nothing in this piece that is put there to give him plausible deniability." (06:01)
  • “Can you imagine what Fox News would say…if the editor of the New Republic wrote a piece demanding 'I want blood in the streets'?" (10:56)
  • “It’s all about power, right? And this is what fascism always, always winds up being. ... There is no pause being given.” (17:08)

• Andrew Egger:

  • “My very first initial thought is just not just violence, but ultra violence. ... He's really letting it fly.” (06:25)
  • “It really grinds my gears how these things are always written from a posture of: I am the only bold truth teller willing to say the thing that must be said... It's like, come on, man. I don't want to live in a cave and wear animal furs and try to bash your head in with a club.” (13:57–15:55)

• Summary Statement:

  • JVL: "If some liberal magazine editor wrote this column, basically every Democrat with any sort of national ambition would be put on the spot and told to repudiate it. ... This is a guy who was the editor and is now the editor at large saying explicitly that he's making a call for violence and he wants blood in the streets...I want you to leave in the comments for me the name of every Republican elected Republican and conservative writer ... who you see denouncing this guy because it's gonna be a short fucking list. That's the asymmetry guys." (20:14–21:50)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• The landscape of political violence and left/right responsibility – 00:45–03:30
• Daily Caller/Jeffrey Ingersoll column background – 03:30–05:04
• Quoting & analyzing 'I Choose Violence' – 05:04–11:35
• On mainstreaming violent answers and hypocrisy – 10:56–13:32
• Contradictions within the right's calls for law/order and violence – 13:57–17:08
• Fascism, power, and the MAGA approach to violence – 17:08–20:14
• Concluding analysis of media double standards – 20:14–22:21

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Tone and Style

Throughout, JVL and Egger maintain a sardonic, exasperated tone, mixing gallows humor with deep concern and sharp critique. They are blunt and unsparing in their language when discussing the gravity of violent rhetoric and hypocrisy in the media and political ecosystem.

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Bottom Line:
This episode is a searing critique of asymmetrical accountability in American politics and media regarding violent rhetoric, using the Ingersoll column as both evidence and warning. Its core argument is: if a liberal public figure published anything close to what Ingersoll wrote, they would be fired instantly and become national news, while on the right, such calls are ignored, tolerated, or quietly cheered—an asymmetry with grave implications for the country.

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Transcript

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[JVL]

Hey everyone, this is JVL here with my Bulwark colleague Andrew Egger with, you know, another unhappy video for you explaining the things that are going on in the world that are terrible. Before we get started, you should go ahead and hit like and subscribe because it's not going to get any happier after this. And Andrew, people very concerned about political violence these days. We, we've written a lot about that at at the bulwark Starting in 2016 when Donald Trump was holding political rallies and telling his supporters to assault people and promising to pay for their legal bills. Going through Charlottesville murder of Heather Heyer, going through the various spates of political violence we've had on the right and the left right shooting of Steve scalise and through January 6th and then to the terrible assassination of Charlie Kirk. This is a thing that I think you and I can agree that not the president or Stephen Miller or many republics, some people have been very responsible about on the right, on the left, every name brand, Democrat or liberal I think has behaved responsibly. I don't think we can point you can find posts on Blue sky and Twitter with progressive types saying irresponsible things. But I don't think you can point to like hey, this representative or this senator or this governor or the editor of this magazine has been bad on this stuff. Would you agree?

[Andrew Egger]

Yeah, you can kind of stress test that proposition by the fact that the people who have been upheld, especially sort of in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the people who have been kind of held up as like the most grievous examples of left wing justification of this sort of violence have been like small town mayors, you know, guys, some guy who maybe runs the city council in some 800 person Pennsylvania town. There's one of those more at the national level. There's been this effort to censure Ilhan Omar congresswoman, who retweeted a video basically right after the assassination, basically saying, like, I condemn political violence, but let's not like sugarcoat Charlie Kirk's life and work and, you know, went. The video kind of went after his work in pretty strident terms, but was explicitly saying, you know, no violence, we don't sanction the violence. And that's kind of been like the person that Republicans have sort of held up as like the worst of the worst right now. So, yes, I think it's basically fair.

[JVL]

To say and to be clear, again, want to give credit where credit's due. Utah Governor Spencer Cox, very good on this. I mean, even Ted Cruz, very good on this. Like, no justifications of violence from them. Donald Trump, little less so. Steve Miller, a little less so. But that's okay. Today we have a piece over at the Daily Caller which is, you know, it's not the New York Times, but it's not nothing. I would say Daily Caller exists. Would you agree on the same level as like Breitbart, like a rung above the Federalist, sort of maybe a half rung below Breitbart in terms of prominence. Does that sound about right to you? Yeah.

[Andrew Egger]

And they were founded, you know, however long ago, before I got to Washington. It was Tucker Carlson who originally founded the Collar. Right. And it was kind of supposed to be sort of this upscale, you know, reporting first, more sort of respectable right wing publication. Sort of ended up doing the thing most right wing publications do or did at that time, which is chase a lot of traffic with, you know, sort of histrionic content. Although the Daily Caller, I seem to remember, also itemized pretty hard into like cheesecake, like Listicles.

[JVL]

Yeah.

[Andrew Egger]

Back in the day. So that was sort of a weird judge in time. Yeah, exactly. When are we going to do that? But, but yeah, I mean, as far as like where they are now, it's like they still have a pretty decent DC presence, so they do more actual reporting than a lot of these other right wing outlets. Not just sort of like.

[JVL]

But yeah, go crazy. I mean, they have reporters. They occasionally do a reported piece through their news foundation.

[Andrew Egger]

That's about it.

[JVL]

Okay, so today we get a piece by, again, not a Nobody, not a 22 year old intern. Jeffrey Ingersoll, who is currently editor at large, was one time the big boss chief over at the Daily Caller, and he has a column the headline of which is Enough is Enough. I choose Violence. I gotta say, as a huge fan of CERSEI Lannister. I was not immediately put off by the headline. I was like, okay, like I'm ready to roll with that. I'd like to journey through this though, with you. We need. So I'm just going to read loads of quotes for us to book club here. Here's Jeffrey Ingersoll. We need to reinstitute a public debt for antisocial and subversive behavior. In my opinion, some of this cost needs to be summary and ultra violent. Is this a call for violence? Yes, explicitly it is. I mean, full credit to Ingersoll for not hiding the football year. He's not trying to. There is, we should say this. There is nothing in this piece that is put there to give him plausible deniability. Do you have thoughts here? Do you want to save them to the end? Should we, should we keep moving through you tell me.

[Andrew Egger]

My first, my very first initial thought is just not just violence, but ultra violence. I wonder what, I wonder if Ingersol means anything specific by that or whether that's just kind of a punch up word to make the copy sing a little more.

[JVL]

Well, we'll get to that. He has some, some, some examples. So he then goes on, then he then begins to justify why ultra violence is necessary. And it is because society has become so rotten and legal structures no longer. Basically it's the Batman. That's why he, he, he gives again. Because Batman. That's why here he is again in corrupt legal scenarios where the judges, prosecutors and even police are all a part of a rigged system. What do we do? Choose violence. We all know the government is not going to help you in your time of need. Especially a Soros sponsored government. Conservatives looking to peacefully assemble and publicly publicly debate need to be realistic. Nobody is going to help you. In fact, they are going to encourage violence. They're going to excuse, justify and encourage it. We saw as much with Charlie Kirk. They were practically begging someone to go after him. And when someone did, they quickly justified it. So a couple things here. I think everybody could probably recognize that governments and laws do not always and everywhere satisfactorily handle outbreaks of political violence and violence, right? Sometimes people who appear to be guilty get off. That's a thing that happens, right? Many people thought that the Kyle Rittenhouse killings were not actually good examples of lethal self defense. Why the jury of his peers didn't agree with that and found him innocent. And so this is a thing that happens, right? Sometimes prosecutors don't do the thing that we want them to. Sometimes juries don't do the things that we want them to, etc. Etc. He doesn't seem to recognize that. He seems to like, you know, any, any case in which he doesn't get the outcome he wants is an example that society is rotten and the government isn't going to help you in your time of need. But then he talks about how they justified what happened to Charlie Kirk. And again, as we said at the top, like, who is they?

[Andrew Egger]

I mean, he has some examples through here, right? He takes a weird detour into, like. I don't just mean, like, physical street violence. I also mean legal violence, which, which we should deploy to go after Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Barack Obama and Anthony Fauci. And like anybody who's ever displeased me, the editor at large of the Daily Caller should probably have the pants suit off them and their lives ruined. I mean, it's. I, I don't know what's. Is there one through line? I don't know. I mean, I. It's, it's all, it's all. He's really letting it fly.

[JVL]

Yeah. So here we get. And I'm going to let the legal violence stuff sit to the side because I, I think that's wrong. But, like, you can have a, you can have a conversation about that. Like, you know that that's not. Here's the stuff that, that starts getting pretty, pretty rough. Bring security with you that's dying to dole out drubbings. I'm sure a fair amount of ex cons who found Jesus loved Charlie Kirk. Maybe they need work. Whatever works. We need to reinstitute the cost. So some activist takes the sign next to your table at a public debate, like, what happened here? And he includes a link. She gets instantly clotheslined. I don't care if police are present, do it anyway. In fact, be wildly disproportionate. A fat black lady assaults your on camera talent. Book the kind of security that has no qualms hospitalizing her and people like her. I mean, I wonder what he means by that. Dudes, rope up your car and start vandalizing it. Bros dismounting with cudgels will fix that real quick. Turn it into an instant brawl. Break bones, force corrupt police to intervene. I want blood in the streets. Before we go on here, I just have to ask. Can you imagine what Fox News would say and how much airtime they would give if the editor of the New Republic wrote a piece demanding I want blood in the streets?

[Andrew Egger]

We had a little mini scandal along These lines when a random Canadian alt weekly had a piece in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death, did you, did you see anything about this? I don't remember the name of the, the name of the publication, but like that, that was how keyed up they all were for like an instance of, of, you know, leftist rhetoric going too far. They dragged this poor, you know, mid tier broadsheet from, from, I don't know, Calgary or something. It was in Calgary. But like yes, you're, you are, you are 100% correct. It would not go unnoticed if, if you know, current affairs or the New Republic or the New Yorker were to itemize into this kind of rhetoric.

[JVL]

We must stop clutching our principles and shouting stop. I mean, only some of you are clutching your principles and shouting stop. My conservative friends, they own the legal system. That will achieve nothing. Not in Texas is it, where you're allowed to run people anyway. Nevermind. 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.

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[JVL]

Necessary VGW Group void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply. That is Jeffrey Ingersoll of the Daily Caller. Again, not an intern. Former head of the Daily Caller, now editor at large. And also not a one off. If you go through his his most recent pieces, Restoring public order starts with viciously arresting more street liberals.

[Andrew Egger]

Street liberals. Nice. Okay.

[JVL]

The rotten smell at the core of liberal politics is unmistakable. The playbook Trump should follow in Kirk's wake is simple, but it'll take brass balls. Charlie Kirk's murder should result in a purge Does Trump have what it takes?

[Andrew Egger]

I mean, can I talk about this just, just for a quick second? Because.

[JVL]

Sure.

[Andrew Egger]

This is as, as I was reading through this and hearing you read those, read those clips, the thing that was going over and over in my head is you would think these two things are like totally irreconcilable, right? That, like that if, if it is true that like the federal government is starting to like really already crack down on these people, you wouldn't have to also call for street violence, right? I mean, you could just do the, you know, everybody relax, Patriots in control. Donald Trump's getting rid of, you know, the, the horrible George Soros prosecutors and the left wing judges. And, and we've had this huge reactionary movement in this country to kind of distance ourselves from, certainly from defund the police, but like from any real, real concern for like, you know, human rights in policing that there's been this enormous pendulum swing back toward, you know, law and order, anti crime policies and like all of those things are having these effects throughout the justice system and isn't that a good thing? But on the one hand he's calling for more and more and more of all of that. And then on the other hand he goes over to this column and says, now, now, as all of us know, the justice system is completely incapable of dishing out justice. No one will ever receive their just desserts through legal channels. And the only thing for you, Joe Patriot, to do is get out there and start cracking heads. Like, I don't really understand that. The other, the one other thing that I would say is just really grinds my gears how like these things are always written from sort of like a posture of like, I am the only bold truth teller who's willing to say the thing that must be said, right? Like, like everyone else will clutch to their pearls and, and, and respect the liberal pieties of, of course we oppose by, oppose violence, but not me because I know what really needs to be done. And it's like, it doesn't take any particular like bravery to say what is really just sort of the default like animal human response to like hostile stimuli. You see a lot of people out there who you don't like for one reason or another and you think that like they're getting more over on you than your side's getting over on them. And your kind of Neanderthal response is to want to dish out violence. And like we've sort of moved past that sometimes. We have, we have sort of lifted ourselves gradually out of the, out of the muck of. Of sort of, you know, Thomas Hobbes, you know, state of nature of. Of. Of, you know, nasty, solitary, poor, brutish and short human violence one on another by, like, building all these social structures that, like, channel that. Those anger. That anger off. Away from violence and, you know, channel better human behavior and better constructive things. And, like, those are fine. It's good that we did that. It's like the, the idea that, like, everything that we have done since. Since sort of like the Stone Age is. Is really just sort of like these liberal niceties. Yeah. I mean, it's like, come on, man. Like, I don't, I don't want. I don't want to live in a cave and wear animal furs and try to bash your head in with a club before you can do the same. To me, that doesn't sound great. And I don't know if you would make it very far in your job as a web columnist under such an environment either, Mr. Ingersoll. So that's. It's all very. It's all very silly.

[JVL]

I mean, this is. It's all about power, right? And this is what fascism always, always winds up being. It's just about power. It's not about internal consistency. It's not like, you know, believe me, Jeffrey Ingersoll is not bothered by the tension between, yes, Trump is doing what needs to be done. Look at all these ICE agents throwing people down to the street. That's awesome. And you can't trust law or the government to safeguard you. We need to form up our own vigilante gangs and go out and put blood in the streets like that. There is no pause being given between, like, wait. And the, the biggest tell on this is how MAGA approaches police authority. So whenever, Whenever you see armed agents of the state committing violence against, say, anonymous black or brown people, the default reaction for MAGA is, well, you know, they deserved it. And it's always like, well, you know, they shot this guy and, well, you know, he didn't comply fast enough. Or they threw this grandmother down onto the ground. Well, she touched them with her elbow. You know, like, there's always a. But then you get to like, January 6th, you're like, these people were beating the police. How dare they shoot that brave patriot, that poor lady, Right? And it's this weird again, it's all just power. It's just pure might makes right.

[Andrew Egger]

And it kind of collapses, really. Any actual distinction between actual spheres of authority where specifically delineated agents of the state are righteous in wielding force under specifically delineated situations under the law in a constrained way. Right. That matters less. Much less. In fact, I mean, he's very plainly making it here. He wants the agents of the state to continue to wield power because the state is currently in the hands of a right wing government. But he also thinks that you, you know, again, Joe Patriot out there on the street corner have just as much of a right as those cops do to wield power because you also are wielding power on behalf of the political right. Right. I mean, that is ultimately what it, what it boils down to is cops who are, who are, you know, trying to, trying to forcibly constrain. And a right wing, you know, Trump supporting mob on January 6th from doing whatever they might want to do are not wielding their authority like duly, because, because they're doing the opposite of the right thing, which is for the political right to get its way. Right. And so like you, you strengthen the, the left right distinction here to such a degree that, that there really is no, is no distinction between like an ICE agent beating up somebody and you yourself beating up somebody because it all really amounts to the same thing, which is putting the left in their place.

[JVL]

Yeah. And final thought here, there is this impulse, especially in the, in the media to both sides everything and be like, well, you know, left, left wing political violence is also really bad. And, and not looked, you know, not, not everybody on the left said the right things about the Charlie Kirk murder. Here are these five anonymous accounts on, On Blue sky that said terrible things justifying violence. I just, I just think it is very important to say that if some liberal magazine editor wrote this column, basically every Democrat with any sort of national ambition would be put on the spot and told to repudiate it. I think that editor would probably lose his job within an hour or two. He certainly would never be welcome as a panelist on CNN again or CBS News. This is, again, we're not nut picking. We're not grabbing some piece written by an intern for a blog that you've never heard of. This is the Daily Caller, which is, you know, I would say like the, a second or third tier conservative media institution. And this is a guy who was the editor and is now the editor at large saying explicitly that he's making a call for violence and he wants blood in the streets. And you guys out there listening to this, I want you to leave in the comments for me the name of every Republican elected Republican and conservative writer, conservative personality out there who you see denouncing this guy because it's gonna be a short fucking list. That's the asymmetry guys. Hit like and hit subscribe. We'll bring you more of this sunshine on a near hourly basis from now until the end of America. Andrew, thanks for hanging out with me. I always show you a good time, don't I?

[Andrew Egger]

It's we have fun, you know.

[JVL]

Good luck America.

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