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Bulwark Takes

When MAGA Invents Its Own Enemies

Bulwark Takes

The Bulwark

Society & Culture, News Commentary, News, Politics

4.71.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sam Stein and Will Sommer break down how MAGA media keeps inventing stories of supposed “left-wing violence.” From a GOP event crash that turned out to be Republicans fighting other Republicans to a teenager’s fake kidnapping blamed on “Mexican cartel hitmen,” the right’s obsession with finding liberal villains keeps blowing up in their faces. The two also discuss how online outrage from right-wing influencers can now trigger real government responses, like ICE raids inspired by a single viral video.

Go read the False Flag article here:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/maga-media-keeps-thirsting-for-left-wing-violence

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Building a coffee business, serving the best Americano in town is up to you.

0:04.1

But winning back time and growing your business, leave that to sum up. Take orders and payments anywhere with the new SumUp terminal. Turn occasional customers into regulars with a free loyalty program. And with the SumUp point of sale system, you'll always know when you're running low on your best selling blends. Visit sumup.co.uk to learn more. Hey, everybody, It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Borg and I'm on with my man.

0:25.5

Will Summer, author of False Flag. Will, uh, you have another doozy. Everyone's a doozy, I suppose.

0:31.4

This one is about, uh, MAGA media, which seems to be on the hunt for instances of left-wing violence, which has

0:40.5

become a priority to find in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination.

0:45.6

There's certainly honest cases of it, but in your newsletter, you note that their efforts

0:52.1

to find instances of this have led to what I would guess are called false positives.

0:57.6

I don't know how you would determine this, but occasional cases where it's in fact

1:00.9

conservatives who are committing acts of vandalism or disruption against themselves,

1:05.1

or just framing it as left-wing violence, and it turns out to not be all there.

1:10.3

Let's start with the first episode, which had video and involved the debate watch party

1:15.0

for the Arlington GOP.

1:16.7

Set the stage for us so we can understand what actually happened here.

1:20.7

Sure.

1:21.2

So this is at a bar called Mr. Days in Arlington.

1:23.9

You know, this is very much GOP consultant class.

1:29.6

And they're having the debate watch for the attorney general debate in Arlington. You know, this is very much GOP consultant class. And they're having the debate watch for the attorney general debate in, in Arlington. The Virginia attorney general debate. Yeah, well, I guess I should

1:34.8

describe the video. Yeah. So yeah, so this is the setting stage. This is the Virginia attorney general

1:38.8

debate. A lot of kind of Republicans around town are there. Exactly. And then this video emerges and the person who posted

1:46.8

the video who was at the party says, you know, this is, you know, these are leftists.

1:50.9

Will these leftists never stop? And it's what happens in the video? It's like two people

1:55.3

showing up, heckling them and shit like that. And yeah, it basically two people, a man and a woman,

...

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