All Episodes
Previous Next
Dec. 9, 2020 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters
01:24:03
Andy Ngo | The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #20
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for what are we the 7th of December now.
We have our very first live studio guest, and I'm very proud to welcome Andy Ngo.
How are you?
I'm well.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to be the first guest on here.
Oh no, I'm honestly genuinely thrilled it's you as well.
Thank you.
How do you find yourself in the United Kingdom at the moment?
Why are you here if you're allowed to tell us?
Well, I've been working all year on a book all about Antifa.
It's available for pre-order now.
It's called Unmasked.
It's coming out on the 2nd of February, but...
I have been based in Portland through all of that and working on it and witnessing the months and months of sometimes nightly violence and riots.
I think I didn't realize how emotionally, psychologically draining all that had been.
I think if people can imagine what it's like to be a semi-public person living in a medium-sized city where most of the people hate you, it's difficult.
The writing process completed recently and I needed to escape.
So I've been telling people I'm a political refugee to your country from the Republic of Portland.
Yeah, in some ways you are though, aren't you?
It's not like Antifa doesn't have a large network in the United States anyway.
They all follow each other on social media.
They all know who you are.
I mean, you really do seem to be public enemy number one for these times.
So, I guess we could start by talking about what's actually been happening with Antifa in the recent past, because I haven't been following it as closely as I should, and you doubtless know a huge amount more than I do.
So, I mean, we've had the, say, Million MAGA March that happened.
Someone was stabbed and a bunch of people were arrested.
Was this just Antifa terrorizing people?
What happened there?
The Million Mag March was the middle of November in DC and that was a big organized pro-Trump rally.
Some reports say it's been the largest public gathering of Trump supporters, thousands and thousands of people in the capital.
But of course, any time now you have a conservative gathering in public, particularly in the city, you're going to have military opposition from the far left.
And the far left will include organized Antifa as well as BLM and other far left radicals.
And they came out and once the pro-Trump rally was entirely peaceful during the day, but as the sun set and people were heading back to hotels or their cars or wherever they were leaving, dispersing, then these marauding thugs that were described then We're looking for stragglers to assault, to rob them of their flags.
And they were prepared for the violence.
They were using explosive mortars, throwing it at people who were eating outside hotels, throwing projectiles.
There were so many rioters that the Metropolitan DC police were overwhelmed and obviously could not be everywhere all the time.
Right.
So, unfortunately, we saw those scenes of the violence on the streets that targeted men, obviously, but also women and minors, families.
I say that this is normal in America.
It's been steadily normalized since 2016 and it's accelerated this year.
Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that, because I recall covering this myself, go back to 2016-2017, and there was a genuine level of outrage.
There was a genuine, this is shocking, it was not something that had been normalised at the time, but now it barely even gets reported.
I mean, it's just part and parcel of American political life.
Does that worry you?
It's worried me for years.
I mean, my family's in Portland, so that's where I'm normally based out of.
And I've been covering Antifa for years now before it became such a popular subject in the media.
And years ago, before I had the following I had now, but I was writing about the subject, particularly because to warn that Portland was the canary in the corn mine for what could happen really across the rest of America.
Because since the election of Trump, there's just been this, not just tolerance, but encouragement from the mainstream left, I would say, for political street violence.
They really believed that they were fighting fascism, but whoever they label that's fascist were essentially anybody who opposed them politically.
So eventually that became an attack on me that led to serious injuries last summer.
So nobody expected that things would accelerate as quickly as they did, particularly this year after the death of George Floyd.
But we had all the signs that it was building up to that.
So, let's talk about how they're organized and what they believe.
Because I think that people kind of fool themselves into thinking they're not quite as extreme as they are.
But I think, as you say, they really believe they're fighting fascism.
So, how do they organize?
How widespread is it across the United States?
And what are the sort of things they tell each other in sincerity?
So there's a lot of misconceptions about Antifa in the press, both on how conservative press covers them as well as left-wing press.
One of the main misconceptions is people think that they are a single entity or a single organization.
They're not.
It's an ideology.
It's a movement.
It's also...
Groups, networks, as well as individuals.
So something analogous that people might understand that they can kind of compare it to would be like violent Islamist ideology where people across different cells may just have followed the same ideology and they may not even be formally part of IS or IS.
or Al-Qaeda or any of the other groups, but they will carry out attacks or try to radicalize other peoples within their community based on their adherence to the same ideology.
So it's like that, I would say.
What people need to know about Antifa is that the name itself is a misnomer.
So Antifa, short for anti-fascist.
They say that all we are are anti-fascists.
No, I mean, even giving them that, that would just be one small, very small part of them.
They're primarily violent anarchist communists, so they are actively working towards It's undoing the liberal world order, lowercase l.
By that, we're talking about Right.
Constitutional democracy, free markets, political representation, all of this sort of thing.
Yes.
The police in particular as a, what do they call it, a method of protecting private property?
Yes.
Yes, that is what the police are.
That's why they're good.
Yeah, so the scope of what they're asking for, and you can see this in their chants, can't you, where they say things like, what is it, no Trump, no wall, no USA at all, and things like that, isn't Yeah, and they're very actually transparent about their radicalism.
You look at their banners, you look at their chants, they will hold banners that are ripped directly from the Iranian regime, like death to America, burning of the symbols of the US. There's a lot of meaning to that.
It's not just anti-nation-state, anti-borders.
It's particularly anti-US. They call the US an imperialist power.
So they're using a lot of language that were historically used by communist regimes to describe the West, actually.
I write about Antifa's history, the ideology in depth in my book, but to summarize briefly, the original Antifa were a paramilitary of the German Communist Party in the interwar years.
From the very beginning, it's been tied to communism over the decades, particularly since the 70s, and when it took root in Britain and manifested in an English-language form, it was really influenced by punk subculture here.
And so there's this anarchist element that was introduced and eventually it was exported to other English-speaking countries around the world.
And I would say that for people who, what they need to know about Antifa is if you actually want to see what their ideology looks like manifested into like quote-unquote state building, look to CHAZ, the former Capitol Hill autonomous zone in Seattle.
So do you want to explain to people what happened with the CHAZ since they may not know?
Yeah, so you have listeners all over the world this summer for three weeks in Seattle, Washington, in the US Pacific Northwest, which is Seattle's largest city in that region of the country.
In the days, actually, after the George Floyd-inspired riots that broke at the end of May, Capitol Hill is this hippie, left-wing, progressive-slash-gay area of Seattle.
But militants had been gathering on the streets every night and attacking a police station and tearing down the barricades that law enforcement had set up, taking over the streets.
And eventually the mayor, the Democrat mayor, gave instruction that the police should leave that police station.
And once law enforcement abandoned it, there was no law enforcement presence in that very densely packed area of the city.
and then...
When Capital Hill Autonomous Zone was born, they actually conceptualized themselves as a separate entity from the United States.
So all the abandoned city property, like the barricades, were moved to be their new actual borders and their checkpoints.
So, you know, they would chant against borders, but one of the first things they would establish is a hard border.
And they actually had armed volunteer security militia essentially standing at these checkpoints.
And it was six blocks of the city that was taken in a really heavily dunced area with high risers, apartments and flats and businesses.
So families and regular people were caught up in all of it?
Yes.
Cars can no longer go in.
They only allowed in, like, people bringing in more supplies to restock food or water inside.
But this went on for three weeks, and I spent a week there.
And this was the Antifa ideology in practice in a live state building that we could see.
And what resulted was attempted rape.
Daily fights, assaults, arson, vandalism, destruction, theft, robbery, and eventually homicides.
How many people died there?
Two people were killed, including a teenager.
There were six shootings, I believe.
No, four shootings involving six victims.
I might have that reversed.
But there were multiple shooting victims.
I believe it's 100% black victim rate.
So, you know, this was conceptualized as an anti-racist, pro-Black Lives Matter space, and all the people who died were Black, all the people who shot were Black.
So, the city eventually was forced to dismantle it because of the deaths in nightly shootings that were happening.
That is unreal.
I mean, it seems like the most irresponsible thing to have done.
I mean, not only does it...
It seems treasonous, secessionist.
I mean, I saw the signs you are now leaving the USA painted on their barricades, which is an unacceptable thing to have happen, full stop.
But then for it to be such a dramatic and disgraceful scenario, the fact that people are being robbed, raped, shot, On a daily basis, to the point where people are dying and finally the government has to step in.
Why is it that wider society just accepted that?
Well, if you remember how the mayor of the city responded in the beginning, she described it as this could be a summer of love.
All the media coverage of it from Daily Beast to Vice Fox, you know, the left-wing echo chamber was describing it as just like a block party.
And they were focusing on the gardens that people were building.
And I described Charles as like a Dr.
Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
So, journalists who came there during the day, often with their security details, would see these sort of festive elements, right?
Ben and Jerry's went there to give out free food.
People were having barbecues and people were walking dogs.
And then at night, it was the real Chaz, which was violence all the time.
And...
This was a literal no-go zone for police.
I know people throw around the term no-go zone a lot, but this literally, because there were actual borders that were manned by people who were armed, police would not, as a matter of policy, go in.
So if you were injured, if you needed help, you would actually have to leave the physical boundaries of the CHAZ. So the businesses there were held hostage.
One of the nights that I was there, Incognito...
When one of the CHAZ residents had tried to rob a car business, auto shop, and allegedly was trying to start a fire inside, the owner and their staff detained this person, and somehow the rumor got spread out that a black person was being held at gunpoint by a white racist.
So when they announced, they announced that on a microphone over loudspeakers.
So literally within an instant, probably a hundred people rushed towards this business, broke down the fence because it was closed and saved their comrade.
And police were called dozens of times by this small business and they didn't come.
So, that was just one example, but this was, like, this experience in anarchy and lawlessness, and people there, residents there and businesses, owners there, they're all left wing, so they're really afraid to verbally voice any discontent about what was happening, because they would have been targeted.
Yeah.
It looks like during the Black Lives Matter protests, not just in Seattle, but elsewhere, painting Black Lives Matter on your windows didn't protect you, did it?
No, it doesn't.
I mean, Starbucks has given money to some of these far-left causes, for example, Nike has, and these are businesses that the Antifa militants actually specifically seek out, and banks as well, the big banks, to smash up, destroy on a nightly or weekly basis.
So...
It's really...
I like your Dr.
Jekyll-Mr.
Hyde comparison.
I think that really fits because there is this sort of narrative, like you say, the left-wing we're trying to produce.
Well, this could be a summer of love.
There's a place of peace and harmony and tolerance.
This is the communist utopia that we've been arguing for.
And the flip side of that being violence and murder and whatnot in the evening.
It just seems to be...
It couldn't have been a more perfect example of why it seems that the sort of radical left-wing philosophy is fundamentally unfit for governance.
You know, if this is going to be allowed, then this is terrible.
But I wanted to move on to something that happened recently that I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on.
So I saw reported by The Daily Wire that Portland's Black Lives Matter activists say they're done with white Antifa and want a separation from them.
Apparently, following the election and the results that suggest Joe Biden may have won, whether you agree with those results or not, it seems that there's been a rift that's formed between these two groups.
Do you know anything about it?
Yeah, so in my writings and when I discuss Antifa in Portland and other major American cities, I say that BLM'd Antifa as sort of linked entities.
And this year in particular, they have really quite merged, I would say, at the hip.
But at their core, they do have different and important ideological and political gender differences.
BLM were founded by self-described Marxists.
Marxists who really loved sort of the classic communist regime model of organizing states.
So they're not against the idea of nation states.
They were just like it ordered under communist totalitarianism.
Could we describe them as Leninists?
Yes, I would say so.
Yes.
So, right, okay.
So, the sort of people who want a vanguard party to take over the state, collectivise all of the property, and re-educate the populace to create the new man, the new world.
Antifa are anarchist communists, and that distinction is important in that they believe in...
The Antifa are anti-capitalists, but they don't believe that...
They think that they can order communities and societies without government.
If I were to characterize it as non-hierarchical, would that be accurate?
Exactly.
That's what they say.
That's why they reject the idea of leaders and all that.
But there's a lot in common, obviously.
Their hatred of the United States, their wanting to abolish police, hatred of capitalism, cross-pollination of critical race theory that Antifa has taken in.
So, they're natural allies, but ultimately these differences will lead to issues.
We're seeing a little bit of it, but I don't think it'll actually lead to really any significant breakup.
But in Portland, there are these...
BLM activists who want more so to really radically transform the political system and bring in their candidates, for example, who introduce their radical policies and all that, whereas Antifa reject the system altogether.
So, they're having some of these issues, but I mean, since the election, Antifa is still rioting on a weekly basis, so it doesn't really matter if there's a few individuals who are with BLM who are voicing disagreements.
Fine doctrinaire points are kind of irrelevant when...
I mean, like you said, they're natural allies in a lot of things.
They hate the United States.
They want to get rid of the police.
They'll say ostensibly they're against things like racism and sexism, etc., etc.
So you can see how they ended up packaged together and moving in the same direction.
Essentially, you could just describe them as kind of anti-Republican, couldn't you?
Not necessarily right-wing conservatives, but the concept of the American Republic is something they despise.
Yes, exactly.
Yes.
So, you know, I've been given testimony to Congress before, to a Senate committee, and I bring a message of...
It should be welcomed, really, by Democrats as well, because the Antifa are working towards dismantling the US, yes, and that includes getting rid of the Democrats.
But as you and your viewers and listeners are aware, the Democrats have...
We've been viewing them as allies against Trump and the losers of that union will be the American people, the country, and I'm very sad to see what's the state of the US. I've got to say, I find it terrifying.
As an outsider watching, I expect the US to be carrying the torch, as it were, and watching The Democrats fail to understand that they have a responsibility to consider the Republicans the loyal opposition rather than as enemies.
And I realize that Joe Biden has been trying to make rhetorical overtures towards the Republicans in this way, saying, well, we're fellow Americans.
It's like, well, they don't think so.
They seem to kind of hate fellow Americans.
It concerns me.
But one of the things I've noticed, and this was just, this article from The Independent, if we can get this, oh, this one's from Sky.
But the way that, this is the way that British media cover things happening in America.
I just wanted to show you this.
So this is the first one.
20 arrested as Trump supporters clashed with counter-protesters.
This was the Million Maga March.
You'll notice that the language is very neutral, you know, The clash broke out, and people were arrested, but you never get to find out who it is that's being arrested here.
Am I to believe that the Trump supporters have been initiating the violence?
Initiating violence?
I would say no.
Generally, the M.O. of Antifa is to specifically go and confront and fight their opposition.
So...
And also, the Trump supporters just aren't able to mobilize in the same type of numbers to go and fight people randomly at events.
Because Antifa organizes these sort of hit squads on social media, don't they?
Yes, they do.
Would you like to tell me about it?
Yeah, so...
It can be really well organized and planned way ahead of time.
Just over the weekend, in the Washington state capital, Olympia, there was a stop the steal type of protest in support of Trump, and that had been promoted for weeks now.
And in response to that, Antifa and other far-left groups and networks organized what they said was opposed fascism type of events.
In terms of that, they had their numbers already ahead of time to come and fight people, and there were brawls in the street.
But there's also something called cyber swarming, which is where, because the networks are already established, certain accounts know who and what to retweet.
If there's a particular individual that they want to target, they could just be at a pub or a restaurant, or it could even just be a spontaneous maybe pro-Trump gather or pro-police event that just happened that afternoon.
They will get people out there right away through this system of amplifying their message.
Yeah.
Very successfully, usually on Twitter, and Twitter makes an effort to break down these calls and incitements for violence by the far left.
Yeah, because I have seen posts going around where they'll name someone, they'll call them a fascist and then give their location out and you will see it being retweeted quite heavily by local activists and then gangs of them will go down to harass that person.
And this is Twitter being used for organisation of violence and nobody holds them to account.
Yeah.
And almost all these are anonymous accounts anyway, so they get shut down.
If they do happen to violate and eventually get closed, they just open another one.
And yeah, initially I was so surprised at seeing how accounts that had maybe 100 followers would get like Thousands and thousands of retweets.
They're so organized at getting their message out in a way that there's no comparison on the right, and it's...
I mean, we're fighting a leasing battle in this regard.
They've really figured out how to get their people to target their victims in real time.
They're very motivated, aren't they?
Very, very motivated.
I mean, and the thing is, I really think that it might be sort of reporting if we can go to the next one, John.
Oh, this is the independent one.
So this was, again, just coverage of the rally, but it's always in the framing.
I can't stand it.
So they said that 20 people have been arrested.
Officials have charged assault.
Again, we don't find out who has been arrested.
Videos posted on social media show fistfights, projectiles and clubs as Trump supporters clashed with those demanding they take their banners and leave.
So, the framing of this, Trump supporters clashed, sounds like the Trump supporters are the active party in there, and those other people just standing around, holding their little sign saying, please take your banner away, we're doing nothing wrong, as if this is a fair framing of the event, which I don't think it is.
So, here's the thing.
That criticism, I agree with, and it's fair.
But coming from somebody who, in the American media context, when I see things like this that are either ambiguous in how they are awarding it or extremely neutral...
I find that almost as refreshing because the American left-wing media, particularly the broadcast media, I mean, look at what we have on CNN and MSNBC. And so when I compare that to things like the BBC or Sky News, I understand people, the British public, when they talk about the left-wing bias, but I'm like, this is nothing compared to the American press.
Well, I hadn't got to where I wanted to get to in the article yet.
If we can get it back up, sorry, John.
The marchers included members of the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group known for street brawling with ideological opponents at political rallies.
Meanwhile, some left-wing groups led counter-demonstrations.
So it's not quite as good as you might think over here.
It's pretty much the same thing.
I mean, I don't personally consider the Proud Boys to actually be a fascist group.
I don't either.
I see them as Republicans, frankly, which for anyone who doesn't know anything about fascism, it's the opposite of republicanism.
It's total state domination, whereas republicanism is limited government.
But known for street brawling with ideological opponents at political rallies is also a very fair description of Antifa.
Yes.
In fact, it seems to be their mission.
And the description, some left-wing groups led counter-demonstrations.
How soft and non-threatening is that?
This type of framing is what all of us come to expect on any type of mainstream coverage of it.
In this particular instance, it goes beyond ignorance or bias and leads to a certain amount of incitement of I think that's a generous way of putting it.
I think smear it would be a more accurate way.
I'm trying to give my colleagues in this industry the benefit of the doubt.
I think, yes, many of them are left-wing activists who are actively smearing their opponents.
I've been victim to that.
If you Google my name, you look at my Wikipedia, you'll see all of that.
I know what that's like.
Yeah, mine looks like that too.
But there's also ignorance as well.
And they just keep repeating, they see, I've seen it, you know, they just see it reported so frequently, probably as our far-right extremist group or neo-fascist group, that they, when these journalists, if they're in London or wherever, or in DC or New York, and they're covering something in another city far away, they would just repeat what they've heard.
So it creates, they create their own realities through one another.
So I guess it's worth talking about some specific instances of violence.
We do have a video of you personally being attacked, but I tell you, we'll cover that in the members-only podcast that we'll do after this one, because it's a bit of a personal thing.
I'd like to talk to you on a personal level on it.
So I guess we'll talk about one Michael Forrest Reinhold.
Would you like to tell us what happened with him?
Why we know his name and why he's famous?
One of the excuses that the press frequently give to Antifa is that they will say, and this is actually repeating one of the Antifa talking points, is that Antifa has killed nobody.
And they'll talk about the threat of the far right.
They talk about the number of people who have been victimized by the far right over decades.
And they'll say that Antifa has killed zero.
That's a lie.
It's untrue.
People who have explicitly...
Identify themselves with Antifa, have carried out attacks, have died in the process of attacks, and killed people as well.
So even before Michael Reiner, there were others.
But this is the most recent example, and it hit very close to home because it happened in Portland.
This was somebody who, in the surveillance, the CCTV footage, you could see that he had...
He looked specifically at one of his targets and waited around the corner and followed him.
Shouted, there's another one, and fired the shot really at point blank and killed a Trump supporter.
Just for being a Trump supporter, wasn't it?
Yes.
And I saw the footage where he was hiding behind a pillar or something.
Yes.
So he ambushed a Trump supporter and shot him in cold blood, purely for being a Trump supporter.
And Reinhold had posted that he was 100% antifar.
That's right.
So he ran off and was essentially fugitive for days.
And the police were very slow with releasing names of even the victim, much less the suspect.
Just for anyone who's curious, the victim was Mr.
Aaron Danielson.
Yes.
And it was internet sleuths on numerous forums who actually were the first to uncover the identity of Michael Reiner.
Nobody knew who he was, and it was because he was partially masked as well, and the videos were kind of grainy.
But he had a Black Lives Matter fist tattoo, a very large one in his neck.
He had actually, a few weeks prior, given an interview to, I think it was Bloomberg, about his involvement as volunteer security for BLM in downtown.
So that's actually how they identified his name, and once his name was known, immediately I looked for his social media, because usually Twitter, Instagram, Facebook will Close these accounts very quickly and you lose opportunity to look how they actually posted.
And one of his recent posts, his quote was, I'm 100% Antifa and went on this, I would call it a sort of manifesto about describing his support for his comrades and his support for revolutionary armed conflict against the state, against police.
So this is somebody, and he has dozens and dozens of other posts about Antifa and anti-racism, and they were all radical and extreme.
So I knew it was just a matter of time that somebody in Portland would end up either killing others or getting him or herself killed.
And unfortunately, that's what's happened.
It happened under the mayor's watch.
He allowed months and months of rioting to happen every day.
Since you've brought up Mr.
Ted Wheeler, what are your thoughts on him?
We had a choice in the November election in Portland between bad and worse.
Bad, I would describe Wheeler.
Worse was Sarah and Aroni who described herself as an Antifa candidate.
Have we got a link to a picture of her wearing a particular skirt that became rather famous?
There we go.
I can't help but notice that this is a skirt made up of portraits of revolutionary Leninist communist leaders.
Bolsheviks, we could call them.
Murderous.
The most murderous, in fact.
Stalin.
Mao.
Che Guevara.
Literally the most murderous communists in all of history.
In fact, the most murderous individuals in all of history.
Genghis Khan was supposed to have killed something like 33 million in total with his conquests.
Mao has him beat, and Stalin probably has somewhere around those numbers.
And that's just normal for middle-class affluent Portland, is it?
This wasn't even a controversy at all.
There's just a tolerance among the mainstream left for far-left politics, radicalism, extremism.
I find that outfit analogous to somebody wearing, honouring Hitler in clothing or something.
If they had a skirt with Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, all of these other, you would be outraged.
Of course, the public would be outraged.
Yeah, rightly so.
She only lost by five points to Ted Wheeler and only because there was a right-in candidate further to her left who got 13% of the vote and wasn't even on the ballot.
Who's further to the left than that?
Yeah, there was a BLM leader, Theresa Rayford.
Right, okay.
And so, okay, the question raises itself then.
Where's the Republican opposition to any of this in Portland?
There isn't.
There's no Republican presence.
There's probably more members of the Democratic Socialists of America or the various socialist groups in Portland.
Probably more members involved in that than the GOP. Portland, like many other blue cities on the coast, is a political monoculture.
And this is a danger, actually, when you have a political system set up where there's no opposition because there's no need to moderate for one.
And even the so-called moderate or establishment opposition That officials will always be under pressure to woo the extremists on the far left.
And that's my view of Ted Wheeler, who himself comes from a very wealthy background.
He comes from elite education at Harvard and Yale, I believe.
So he's very much part of the establishment Democrat upbringing and background, but there was a constituency percentage in Portland who were supportive of Antifa, and he also doubles as the police commissioner.
It's a very odd system in Portland, and that, in my view, made him tolerate the Antifa political violence in Portland because it was...
Framed under the cause of racial justice.
Right.
It's very progressive.
And on top of that, he actually inflamed and made things worse because he would speak of the federal law enforcement who were deployed to protect federal property because extremists every night were trying to set it on fire, burn down buildings.
He was calling the federal law enforcement essentially an occupying power.
The mayor was against his own police.
Against the federal law enforcement.
Oh, the federal law.
But he's done things to make his own police feckless, like banning the use of tear gas, for example.
Talking about how violence or property destruction can be avenues to force positive political change.
So...
It's just giving all these breadcrumbs, even more, the bigger than breadcrumbs, to the far left.
And of course, it was never enough.
Antifa absolutely hated Ted Wheeler anyways.
They came to his house on numerous occasions.
And instead of empowering law enforcement to restore order, he ended up announcing he was moving out of his condo.
Sorry, he fled his house rather than protect himself?
And his neighbors, correct.
Yeah.
So I recall seeing a video probably last year now of him trying to ingratiate himself into Antifa and into the protests.
Oh yes, that was this summer.
It was in July.
So it was at the height of the nightly violence against the federal property.
Right.
Oh, it was this year, was it?
Yes, it was this year, a few months ago.
I was there actually.
I was right next to him.
Time blurs together.
It feels like this has been going on forever.
Yeah, so he came out to show support for the Black Lives Matter protesters, and there was Antifa there.
And he stood in front of the federal courthouse, and people had started fires in the front.
And so tear gas was fired to try to disperse people, and he stood in it.
Varo moment of the mayor getting gassed by federal officials from the Trump administration.
So the media coverage was horrendous.
All these parachute journalists from DC, New York coming in and they were pouring fuel on the fire talking about how the secret police were disappearing people.
All these lies that were inflaming and actually bringing protesters from causing protesters and rioters from outside of Portland to come in.
So it was a war zone, as I would describe that entire month.
And it sounds like it's being incited by the media.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, when the media is describing federal law enforcement who are carrying out their lawful duties as disappearing people, acting like secret police, interviewing people who were detained and not really offering any independent scrutiny of some of their claims because these people are saying like...
I was targeted because I was transgender.
I was targeted because of this or that.
And just amplifying it, Washington Post had been really atrocious.
They even did this spreadsheet on riot fashion, on these black-block fashion and made it look fashionable to riot.
That was Washington Post.
Again, that strikes me as deeply irresponsible.
Absolutely.
And, of course, they are derelict in their duties and identifying and naming those who have been arrested and met the threshold for criminal arrest.
CNN have actively normalized Antifa.
There are segments from 2017 where I think it was CNN... I can't remember which one it was.
Chris Cuomo.
Yeah, Rose City Antifa, I think.
They were embedded with, and they were, I mean, it was a puff piece, to say the least, where these people were giving what is essentially the same manifesto as ISIS. We wish to tear down the United States, and CNN, oh, that's so interesting.
Tell us more.
This isn't something that should be promoted.
Yeah, they, um...
I myself underestimated how powerful or skilled Antifa were at creating propaganda and manipulating media, or they would actually have fellow travellers in the media as well, to amplify their message and make...
I mean, and they've succeeded.
They've made left-wing political violence palatable to the mainstream left.
Yes.
It's tolerated.
Yes.
So...
Me going to Britain now and seeing, yes, you had instances of riots in London that lasted for a day or two.
You had a toppling statue in Bristol.
But the appetite in the public for that type of extremism was not tolerated.
Whereas in the US, I mean, think about it in Portland and in other cities, Portland in particular, we had over 130 days of riots.
Yeah, and that is literally every single day.
Every night.
Yeah.
That's insane.
So I guess what we'll do then is have a look at the people who are actually doing the rioting.
Your Twitter feed has been a thing of gold.
Absolutely.
Famous.
Famous.
And this is doubtless why they're all so angry with you.
These are people who have been arrested in a Portland Black Lives Matter antipart protest, charged and quickly released.
Again, another one.
And another one.
And another one.
And I can't help but notice there are a lot of white women involved in this.
Yes.
You'll notice the demographics are young, white individuals.
Yes.
I mean, this one being a 23-year-old transsexual militant antifa member, as you described it.
Exactly.
So, I actually do spend so much time gathering, because I have to do public records requests to get these booking photos and the names and the charges, and finding out, okay, where the charges dropped, and 90% of them have we've had.
About 1,000 cases since the riots began, and this is Portland at the end of May, about 1,000, 90% of them have had the charges dropped by the district attorney.
So that is a whole other issue we have of people.
That's the reason why you're having people getting arrested seven, eight times.
They face literally no repercussions.
They get booked into the county jail.
The vote is taken.
Within a few hours, they're let out, and the charges are dropped.
Look at some of these people.
I don't mean to laugh, but they don't look like they're people who are living their best lives.
See, I know these photos elicit a lot of different types of responses, but I have actually a certain sympathy and empathy for some of these people who have been pulled into this ideology because they...
They're used and discarded in a way that's very cruel.
They're used as the foot soldiers to carry out the violence and oftentimes they get beat up by, or not necessarily beat up, they will meet forceful opposition from either a political opponent or law enforcement and they will get injuries and all that.
You can see it on some of their faces.
And they're just a pawn in this wider political agenda of Antifa.
Can we go to the next one, John?
I mean, just look at the state of them, though.
There are a lot of intense looks that are in these photos, and it's, I mean, very concerning.
I mean, a few...
There's a part of me that thinks they're not sending their best, but then I think, well, what if this is their best?
Mm-hmm.
But there was one few back that was an 18-year-old girl who had green-dyed hair.
And there we go.
Grace here.
18-year-old green-haired Portland lesbian activist dressed in black bloc, charged with attempted assault of an officer harassment, resisting arrest and more.
This is a person who should be doing things that young people do, not trying to destroy the United States, right?
Yeah, this is a deeper question that all of us need to be thinking about is why now are we seeing such...
Why are young people being pulled into this far less revolutionary politics, both in my country as well as yours?
Why do they not see...
Not only are they not concerned with their lives, but they have an actual hatred for the nation and its symbol and its people.
They want to see it actually destroyed.
And it would be one thing if these were people who were just on the fringes who were street hooligans and thugs.
But as you see, they've made themselves politically powerful through building allies and coalitions into the mainstream left.
Yes.
Yeah, well, that's the thing, isn't it?
I mean, as one of these here, as a medical student, these are people who are not, you know, transient thugs.
You could understand it if they were all grizzled men covered in scars with long criminal histories and they turned up in Portland as a gang or something and they were committing acts of terror.
But this is the regular people of Portland, isn't it?
Yes.
It encompasses all...
One of the...
People shouldn't be surprised that many of the people who have been arrested over these riots this year have been academics, people working in white-collar jobs, attorneys, even one of the main staffers of the Speaker of the House for the Democrat in Oregon.
Yeah, so that was a big thing.
Wasn't Bill de Blasio's daughter arrested?
Yes, in New York City at a violent riot.
And there's been other Democrat politicians, family members who have been involved in riots.
I mean, Tim Kaine, who in 2016 was the VP running mate with Hillary Clinton.
His son was part of a black bloc riot in Minnesota in 2017, protesting the inauguration of Trump.
And He was allegedly violent.
So there's been other high-profile...
Yeah, oh, and the son of...
I'm blanking on it.
Keith Ellison, who's the Attorney General.
That's the Chief Prosecutor for the State of Minnesota.
His son actually declared...
But his son is on the city council of Minneapolis, and he declared his support for Antifa on Twitter.
And also has been one of the loudest voices for abolishing the police.
It's totally in the institutions of these democratic-run cities that these people are flourishing.
I suppose this answers the question of why are they constantly being let off without bail?
Yes.
And for the few that do get, because the criminal accusations are so serious, like let's say really injuring law enforcement or destroying a building and getting caught, for those who actually will then get prosecuted, They get their legal aid all covered for by these various left-wing legal defense groups.
In Minneapolis, for example, when the riots there happened for the week, $35 million was raised to bail them out and to cover their legal fees as well, $35 million.
So celebrities were giving money to these.
In Portland, much, much smaller scale, one of the Far-left legal groups raised over $1.3 million.
So either for those who have to pay a bond to be released from jail, they get that covered immediately, and then they get connected to a pro bono lawyer.
So they're all taken care of.
The system is like a running machine.
It's a huge machine.
It's a huge machine with millions of dollars and people in positions of elected authority.
That's terrifying.
Are there any more faces of Antifa that we can have a look at?
Because I do enjoy it.
And I know I shouldn't.
It's lowbrow to do so, but...
Oh, who is this?
This is a person, Isabel Rosa Araujo is the legal name, formerly known as Philip Delici.
An anti-firm militant in Portland, she has made, identifies as she or her, has made numerous death threats against me, which I've reported to law enforcement as given names.
Nothing ever happens.
More recently, She's just been amplifying some of the threats against me and other threats in Portland, and this person just faces an illegal consequence.
It's unreal.
It's unreal that this is allowed to happen.
The eyes.
It's always the eyes.
But you can see this chap in the bottom left, he's been beaten quite badly, hasn't he?
Yes.
Yeah, so...
I mean, I don't want to laugh.
I don't want to mock.
But there is a consistent pattern that these look like people who may not have necessarily succeeded in the social game of life.
You know, they look like they probably aren't married with kids and a house and a dog and a picket fence outside their house.
Do you think that might be something to do with the reason they're drawn to radical politics?
A large number of the people who have been involved in the rioting, particularly the ones who keep returning, many of them are homeless or vagrants.
This is what I mean when I describe the movement and ideology as, quote, wicked, is that it's pulling in these people who Should be protected by society and they're using them as henchmen.
Yeah.
I mean, these people look like they need help.
Yeah.
They look like they're not mentally sound.
Right.
So what we'll do is we'll answer some questions, then we'll go get some lunch, and then we'll do a bit more of a personal chat about your experiences doing all of this on the ground, which you can find by becoming a member of loadseaters.com.
We'll hopefully have up today, if not today, tomorrow.
It'll be recorded offline, so you'll have to get it when we upload it, but that's the one I'm looking forward to.
I know that I speak for a lot of people.
We're all very, very impressed with your bravery.
I mean, I wouldn't have gone to the Chaz, and I'm not very famous.
You're terribly famous in these circles, and you are in real danger going to these things, and you have been attacked, but we'll talk about that later.
Right, so where are we?
Right.
Evan says, look what happens when lockdown prevents women from getting their birth control.
Welcome to the world, Alex Benjamin Provida.
Oh, I recently had a son.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Yeah, on Friday my wife gave birth to a son.
Alex?
Alexander, yeah.
Alexander Benjamin.
Jesus Fried Christ says, see, I told you.
Hi Andy, you're a true patriot and American hero.
Thank you.
I hear these things about you all the time.
Andy is a legitimate Chad.
I don't normally get described that as a homosexual male, but I appreciate that.
Sargelius says, Andy, no, thank you for putting yourself in harm's way in the name of true journalism, and thank you, Carl and company, for standing up for it.
It's our pleasure, honestly.
Danik says, Andy, if mainstream journalists had 10% of your integrity, the world would be a better place.
Thank you.
You're just going to get nothing but compliments here, so I hope you take them well.
Absolute Chad lad, you are Andy.
Respect.
The solution is to restore the aristocracy.
Okay, we'll talk about that another time.
Earl of Longford.
I'm seeing some vested interest there, just saying.
We should start anti-capitalism in a name, extremely pro-Austrian capitalist in nature.
Again, another conversation for another time.
Anarchism and communism is diametrically opposed.
Not as much as you'd think.
You are, I would guess, associating communism with the 20th century Soviet Union and its various kind of satellite states.
But the communists really think there should be no state at all, don't they?
Some of them do, some of the anarchist philosophers, and these are the ones that are influential on Antifa ideology, obviously.
America will be free again when the last media collaborator is...
Okay, I can't read stuff out like that, I'm afraid.
So we'll go on to the next one.
Chas Delenda Est.
Do you know what that means?
Is that Latin?
It is Latin, yeah.
Which one was it?
It was...
Oh, God...
No, no, no, I know that, no, no, but what was the politician who used to say it?
No, it was Cato the Elder, I think.
Basically, Roman fought a war with Carthage, they'd won, but Carthage had been very prosperous, and so I think it was Cato the Elder who finished every speech he gave to the Roman Senate with, and therefore I think Carthage must be destroyed.
It was Carthago Delanda Est, so Chas Delanda Est is it.
But thankfully the Chas is no longer there, is it?
So that has been fulfilled.
Cato will be very proud.
Wonderful to see Andy Ngo here.
You do great work and so many of your peers fail and I wish more understood its importance.
But where's Hugo?
Oh god, we're not answering questions from Hugo Simps.
He's got fans.
Matthew Hammond says, I saw reports that Portland was paying for a tent city that was housing the peaceful protesters.
Why is the government allowed to do this?
Okay, I can talk about that.
So there was a viral video in the summer of...
One of the individuals in this publicly funded tent city encampment, a homeless encampment, was one of the protesters who had been arrested around four or five times already.
So unfortunately that was spun as this is an Antifa camp.
It wasn't.
It was a homeless camp and at least one of them, probably more, were involved in some of the protests.
So do you think the Antifa are recruiting from places like this?
I don't think necessarily going inside, but they do these things called mutual aid, where they say they will give food and support, particularly at the protests.
And actually, I write about this in the book.
It's very important for the recruitment of vagrants and other economically vulnerable people.
The distribution of free food supplies, tent supplies, every night was a pull in bringing in more people who may not even share a similar ideology, but they have nothing to lose.
They just show up and have a benefit from human shields and they use them quite frequently.
Like you say, the foot soldiers.
Yes.
Obsidian says, Andy, you are brilliant.
You're a source of moral good in the world.
Keep up the journalism.
What do you think of British Antifa LARPers?
Love you.
So the original English language manifestation of Antifa in contemporary times...
We call them the Labour Party.
...took place, took root in London, in your country.
But I've been quite surprised when I've seen them in their demonstrations here.
They aren't really that violent compared to...
Not compared to the American one.
Compared to the Americans, especially not compared to the German and French Antifa.
I mean, I have been attacked by them.
I remember that.
It was at the university.
It was.
King's College London.
They weren't as violent as the Continentals.
The Continentals would have been armed and probably would have been stabbed or something.
So what is it about the British culture where you don't see, I guess, as much open political violence?
British culture is very procedural.
So the ends don't really matter as much as the means.
And this has been quite a deep cultural understanding in Britain for a long time.
And so it's in all circumstances obviously wrong to beat someone up.
It's in all circumstances obviously wrong to burn someone's property or something like this.
And liberalism came from England.
It came from a concern for property rights.
And England has a very, very long history of conserved property rights, going right the way back to the Magna Carta.
One of the major things about Magna Carta is that the king couldn't just arbitrarily seize the baron's property.
And that became the kind of spark, the principle that led to constitutionalism as we know it and the United States as you know it.
It all comes from England.
So we've got a very long tradition of respecting people's property.
And your body is your property.
And so it follows on naturally that this is wrong.
The Continentals don't have that.
You also have a tradition of street hooliganism, particularly tied to football politics.
Can you help explain that?
Yeah, so I'm not an expert on street hooliganism from football clubs, but this is effectively groups of drunk men who are all wearing their team shirts going out and having a fight about a football match.
So it's not even political?
Not really, no.
It's political in the sense that fans from one club will have a political...
It's political within the institution of football.
But I don't support football.
I don't know anything about football.
So I don't think I'd be attacked if I were to meet some of these people because they would not really recognize me as an enemy agent.
But a lot of the time it was kind of consensual.
They wanted to fight each other.
It is bad, though.
But it's not the same as the sort of political violence you see on the continent.
So, thank you, Ian, for the donation.
Kit says, this is how civilization ends.
Dark age comes.
Earl of Longford again.
It's the visible difference between the believers in the revolution and the Stalinist tankies that see the opportunity.
Yeah, the Antifa, the anarcho-communist types are just going to get ice-picked.
By the Stalinists, in my opinion.
Check the research of SARS-CoVs survivors to grasp the long-term issues expected in COVID-19, mental health and chronic fatigue.
Bit of an off-topic comment, that.
The original Antifa burned the Reichstag, prove me wrong.
I think that was the original FAR that did that.
I thought the Reichstag burning was...
By communists.
I thought it was a false flag by the Nazis.
Well, that's one theory.
Well, that's one theory, yeah.
I suppose it is, yeah.
Non cogito ergo chas.
I'd wear that shirt.
I never did Latin at school, because I don't come from nearly a posh enough family to learn Latin at school.
Yeah, I think that's...
Well done, Callum.
I don't think they're for chance.
Ian says, the Dems are a calloboomercrads and neoboomercrads who look left and see only Woodstock and as a consequence usher in tyranny and collapse.
Sargelian says, if the Proud Boys were leftists, they would be called freedom fighter activists.
Do you think that's true?
Well, Antifa are treated as...
Fighters for the oppressed.
So, yes, of course.
And Antifa are much, much worse than the Proud Boys.
Oh, well, way worse, obviously.
I mean, I've probably met the Proud Boys, but probably didn't know until afterwards.
Because in 2017, 2018...
In 2019, I went to the United States and I gave some speeches for, I guess, what I'd just call Republican groups.
But looking back, there's definitely going to have been some sort of overlap with the Proud Boys.
But at no point did I see any violence or anything like that.
There's absolutely nothing.
This is why I just don't really believe the media accounts of what the Proud Boys claim to be.
They seem completely just like Republicans to me, who are just tired of being attacked in the streets by communists, which I think is a totally fair position.
They're demonized because they fight back.
Yes, I think so.
And I really think that is the case.
They're demonized because they exercise their right to self-defense, which is a moral right.
Carl, Andy's stories about the hypocrisy of the violent left is really important.
Why choose to cash in and put the personal story on part of your members section?
Fuck's sake, your website wasn't working for ages.
Well, unfortunately, that's what a business is.
The website's working now, so you can sign up to see it.
And it is important, which is one of the reasons that we're going to pay Wallet.
Sorry, I have bills to pay.
But thank you for the donation.
We'll put a few clips out so you can see some of the personal things.
And again, it's worth supporting us for.
Son of Satan says, 90s novelty pop group Right Said Fred have just been on Channel 4, speaking out against lockdown, based Right Said Fred.
Yeah, it's interesting that a lot of the sort of boomer pop stars are realising that there's been an erosion of Britishness and British culture and the concern for these things.
Like John Cleese saying, London isn't an English city.
I mean, do you agree with that?
As an outsider, I think, well, let's say, I... I won't weigh in on that.
It's too much of a hot topic.
That's a yes.
Question for the techies.
Lotsita's IRC network when?
Okay, I'll pass that along to the techies.
Josh and Usloo podcast stream when?
Oh my goodness.
We'll see.
Did Antifa take over BLM? No.
Antifa act as, they have a symbiotic relationship, but I would say at the end of the day, BLM, by BLM referring to the black leadership, but BLM will have an upper hand just because they will.
It is racial, isn't it?
Yes, and Antifa have also incorporated in this critical race theory, intersectional stuff, so they are very deferential to what they say are black voices.
Yeah, and Antifa being predominantly white.
Yes.
Overwhelmingly so.
Yes.
Ted Wheeler reminds me a lot of King Louis XVI during the French Revolution, minus the guillotine for now.
Do you know anything about that?
Give me a history lesson.
Well, Louis...
Is it Louis XVI? No.
It was Louis XVI, was it?
I thought it was the 14th for some reason.
But he was an absolute monarch.
And it's actually a really long thing, and I don't want to go into it because I haven't got the time, but I'll tell you over lunch.
But it's essentially everything that you can see now happening in Western English-speaking societies happened during the French Revolution.
Initially it was a constitutional monarchy that they wished, and so Louis XVI went along with it.
But eventually it turned into, and this was the sort of bourgeois, middle-class, liberal side of things, where it wasn't revolutionary to begin with, but they wanted political reform, which is totally valid.
But they still recognised the authority of the king, that France should be a kingdom.
And then you had the Mountain, which was a group of communist radicals, frankly.
And they create their own commune, and out of this come Republican sympathies and things like this.
But you can see the process becoming more and more radical until you eventually get Robspierre taking over in the Great Terror.
Taking hold.
And France becomes, especially Paris really, becomes a hotbed of conspiracy theories and paranoia that there are proud boys everywhere seeking to overthrow the revolution and a lot of people end up getting killed.
Most of them not aristocrats either.
Most of them just being regular folk who get dobbed in because suddenly the whole thing fractures into various different factions.
I mean, you have these political clubs that would organize.
They would call themselves like, you know, the Friends of the Constitution or the Friends of the People.
And even within these clubs that were very influential, you'd have four or five different factions that would eventually end up executing one of the other factions because they would, you know, they would press for power, they would fail, they would get arrested.
It's quite terrifying, but you can see the progression as we can see it now happening in America.
It's nothing new under the sun.
Yeah, and actually I think the Weimar Republic and interwar years offer important lessons as well, in particular the different political groups having their own paramilitaries and fighting in the streets and leading to polarized politics and also a populace who just wants somebody to restore order.
I... Terrify that Antifa are creating the villains that they say that they're there to fight.
There is a part of me that wonders if they're trying to be oppressed.
They want the state to crack down on them.
Because I think that to a lot of them, there's probably this kind of heroic narrative of being the sort of communist insurrectionary, fighting for the oppressed.
And you don't really have much of an oppressor in the United States.
Donald Trump failed to be the fascist dictator.
They really seem to want him to be.
There's a kind of forlornness about it.
They almost seem sad that they're not being oppressed, and so they're like, oh, well, the police are disappearing people from the streets.
No, they're not.
Yeah, so one of the goals is actually to provoke a response from law enforcement so that it can be used For propaganda purposes.
So if one of their comrades is getting arrested or tackled or something, these very selectively release videos and will be used to amplify the masters that are being oppressed by the state, by Trump's Gestapo.
And it's a really powerful recruiting method for them.
But it's not true.
It's not true.
Many American schools and unis don't recognize Asian students as colored anymore.
Welcome to the White Supremacist Club, Andy.
Nice to have you.
Yes, everyone gets called a white supremacist.
But again, it's the same political ideology.
What's it like to have them talk about your race so much?
I find that...
Because I've seen you being called a white supremacist many times.
I don't get it as bad as particularly black dissident thinkers because they are quite vilified and hated in more explicit terms, I would say.
But broadly, yes, I'm called race traitor and all that at times, but I think...
In the US, East Asian Americans, there's not as strong enough identity around their race.
So they don't view people who have differing political views so much as traitors.
The people calling me traitors are primarily white leftists and liberals.
Almost always, actually.
Do you ever get your race mentioned by Republicans?
I think in passing sometimes they'll say that, or they'll mention my...
Maybe I should have said in a political manner.
No.
Yeah, because I mean they might say, oh, you're from Vietnam or wherever.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's normal to talk about someone's family history, but they're not making a political issue out of it, are they?
No.
It always seems to come from the, and I only ever see it coming from the radical left as well.
I see lots of black activists called disgraceful names, things that I could never call people.
I would be in tremendous trouble if I ever said these things, and yet it seems common.
Andy, keep doing what you do.
As Edmund Burke said, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
You are not a good man doing nothing.
You stand up and fight.
That's good.
Andy, with the threats you get, how often do you find them legitimate?
I think they're really...
I've been fully doxed before, and what's scary is that they've also doxed my family.
And so a lot of these people who are doing these threats are cowards who are not going to themselves do something to me.
But by releasing out my personal information out into the ether, the goal is that somebody who is unhinged will do something.
And that's a...
A fear that I do have to live with and part of the reasons why, for now, I've left the US. Phi Duong says, Vietnamese together strong.
Blitz Turtle says, remember Pearl Harbor?
What?
Coffee Time General says, just back from a walk with a mate, glad to see Andy Senpai on the pod.
Give these simp bucks to him so he can buy a bong 10 room temperature ale.
Will do.
Andrew says, just wanting to support reporting of true facts and the voice outside the echo chambers.
Thank you, Andy.
Rigby says, Andy, left unchecked, do you think these movements could lead to the decline of fall of America?
Doesn't seem like a fight for control, but active sabotage.
If I had been asked this before May, I would have said a fall of America?
No, impossible.
The US has such a developed democracy and its institutions are so powerful.
But seeing...
That week in May of just neighbourhoods being burnt down city to city in the US and law enforcement and the military being unable to actually stop.
Just for anyone who's not sure, you're talking about the riots after the George Floyd death.
Wasn't it something like half a billion dollars of property damage?
I'm not sure if a full number has been assessed because the damage is still ongoing, but that sounds about right.
There's a very famous picture of Target just in flames, this huge burning building.
Because it's taken at night, it looks like something out of World War II. Yes.
People were calling police all night, pleading for help.
I mean, Chad's people were pleading for help and law enforcement wouldn't come in.
So it's rattled my confidence in the US in a way that's never happened before.
I don't think they'll find success in terms of a storming of the White House and taking power that way, no.
But a gradual infiltration of the Democrat Party, which we've already done a lot of, and mainstreaming their transformative political agenda into the platform of the and mainstreaming their transformative political agenda into the platform of the That's where they'll find success.
What worries me is that they'll erode public confidence in institutions like the police, which is obviously a part of their plan.
And this will mean that people won't have confidence in them and they won't rely on them.
And so the institution will wither.
Exactly.
And we're seeing the consequences, actually, of the delegitimizing of law enforcement.
Crime in Portland shot up, violent crime, shootings, homicides shot up 200% this summer.
We haven't had these levels of homicides and shootings in decades.
Seattle's the same.
Chicago, other cities.
It's just been...
This is the logical and obvious consequence of the BLM Antifa agenda, and they're not facing the backlash for doing that.
Andy, do you think if we put more of a focus on mental health treatment, we'd have fewer people recruited by Antifa and used for pawns for power?
Not enough to make a dent.
I think what's really most important is instilling in retaking back education, K-12 education, in addition to higher education, has been entirely wrapped around critical race theory.
And critical race theory is not...
It makes people develop grievances and hatred and a hatred for their country and society.
I think Americans' children need to be taught patriotism.
So you think Trump's patriotic education is a good idea?
Yes, I do.
Same here.
I think it's an excellent idea.
All Americans should watch the show Babylon Berlin.
It gets the Weimar Zeitgeist spot on.
People don't realise just how extreme the cultural degradation was in Berlin during the Weimar era.
There are books on it and it's crazy.
Anyway, Political Pothead says, Great job, Andy.
Your reporting and aggregating stories about Antifa has helped Red Pill normies and some of my co-workers.
Will Dems now be more willing to crack down now that a coup of Trump seems done?
It's a bit too early to see, but we're seeing, at least in Portland, the...
Antifa rioters actually in one night had destroyed the Democrat headquarters in Portland.
I think Democrats thinking that you could loosely ally yourself with this ideology movement and not come out unchanged or having to pay dues, they're wrong.
Antifa are there to collect what they think is theirs.
So we'll see.
You know, Biden is not somebody who is pulling the strings of the Democrat Party or the executive position, in my opinion.
So it's...
We'll just have to wait to see.
But I'm not optimistic, obviously, about a Democrat administration.
What does Andy think of the video of the random Asian guy on the street that was verbally abused and accused of being Andy Ngo?
Well, I'll be talking to him about that in the second podcast we're going to do.
For the members-only area of Lotuses.com, we should go sign up for £5 a month and you get lots of extra content.
But thank you for the donation.
Good to see Andy doing well.
He's a real American hero and a role model to us all.
Thank you.
You deserve all of this, man.
Great work, Andy, on delving deeper into the ideology behind Antifa.
Any plans to visit Scotland on the horizon during your time in the UK? Actually, yes.
Really?
Yeah.
I'm planning to go to Glasgow at some point, but all my English friends are saying go to Edinburgh instead.
Edinburgh is the prettiest city.
I've been to both, actually.
Edinburgh, the castle, is fantastic.
It's gorgeous.
But Glasgow's not a bad city.
It's not a bad city.
It's got a reputation, obviously.
It does.
I didn't go drinking out in the pubs late at night.
You know, who knows what would have happened.
that's um all right let's try and get these through these a bit quicker because we've got to go get some lunch I'm hungry.
Everyone knows lefty anarcho movements and breaking down into paranoid conspiracies go hand in hand.
In a state of nature, these things always happen.
That's true.
The more I see and hear Andy know, the more I want to sleep with him.
Well...
That's a first.
That's good.
You're doing well.
Sealsy says, Andy, do you think the restraint of ordinary people on the right ruined the left's plans for using Antivar BLM street sheep as cannon fodder?
I'm not sure I understand the question.
Do you understand?
Yeah, I think what they're saying is they expected more of a reaction from right-wingers to being attacked on the street.
And I agree that there has been a huge amount of restraint from ordinary people regarding this.
Did this foil their plan somewhat?
I don't know about foil because I feel like they've had so much success this year, but obviously when...
Antifa are able to kind of turn the narrative in their favor, really, regardless of if they are the aggressors or if they're the victims.
They're able to always come out on top, I think.
It seems the media is just willingly compliant in this regard.
Exactly.
The Earl of Longford again says, personally attacked.
Damn you, Carla.
Your Bonapartist leanings will see all of Europe and the Americans aflame.
I have Bonapartist leanings.
Don't give me that.
Is the Boogaloo inevitable?
And as a citizen of Europe, how do I convince my fellow Paddies to struggle for freedom?
Do you think that a civil war is coming in the United States?
Not only time soon.
I think the people who are saying that they're analysing the politics through too short of a timeframe really has to get to a breaking point that I don't think were there yet, fortunately.
But I think it's on that trajectory.
Yeah.
I think it is on that trajectory.
Yeah, particularly in what's scary is both the left and right rejection of election integrity.
Hi lads, any opinions on Bristol Antifa?
They're the worst I've come across, but I imagine wimps compared to the US or European brands.
Up the Andy!
I personally have encountered Bristol Antifa on my MEP tour.
They did, but I think that was a bit of an accident though, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, these guys are there.
I don't think they're actually meant to break Simon's toe.
I think that just happened.
But yeah, like, I mean, they're definitely the worst of the ones we've got around here.
But even then, again, they just seemed like the sort of faces that Antifa went through.
They seem like people are very low on the social hierarchy.
And this seemed like a way of giving them meaning.
Yes, that's something I hope you talk about in your future discussions on this topic.
There's a certain type of people who I would say are more vulnerable to this type of political radicalism.
And I think having these grievances that are either real or made up or imagined is what makes them recruits.
Yeah.
I mean, they can suddenly be heroes.
They're fighting Nazis, whereas before, they were losers.
And I don't want to say it just frankly, but it's kind of true, you know?
This is the first time I've ever been able to catch you live and with Andy Ngo, no less.
Really enjoying your show so far.
Thank you, the purest form of cancer.
LAUGHTER Such a compliment.
You get what you deserve.
He said the thing.
Right.
Thank you, everyone, for joining us.
Really appreciate you dropping by.
And you can see the second half of this interview on LotusEaters.com, where it should be up later today or tomorrow.
Andy, thank you so much for joining us.
It's been a real honour to have you as our very first guest.
It's been my privilege to be here, so thank you to you as well as the audience.
All right.
▲
Export Selection