Andy Ngo Quotes

Thousands around the United States support antifa and the far left. They are willing to donate to their fundraisers. Politicians and celebrities promote their causes, and local media provide favorable coverage. Riot Ribs was one of the most successful Portland antifa mutual aid groups during the summer. It raised more than $330,000 but suddenly dissolved overnight in July 2020 and disappeared, along with the money.

Responding police cruisers had their tires slashed by rioters who dumped nail-filled pool noodles on the street… the night before, rioters tried to break into the Portland Police East Precinct. Two elderly women who lived nearby tried to stop the mob from setting fire to the building. As one of them used an extinguisher to put out a fire, she was screamed at and harassed. The mob then hurled paint at them. One woman had it thrown in her face and eyes.

As bad as the riots already were, city council and local politicians actively worked to undermine the federal government’s attempts to protect federal property. In effect, they were cobelligerents with antifa in their uprising. When Acting Secretary Chad Wolf of DHS flew to Portland from Washington, DC, in mid-July to survey the extent of the violence and destruction, local officials preemptively refused to meet with him. ‘We’re aware that [DHS leadership is] here. We wish they weren’t,’ tweeted Mayor Wheeler. ‘We haven’t been invited to meet with them, and if we were, we would decline.’ Oregon Democratic senator Ron Wyden called federal officers an ‘occupying army.’ Oregon governor Kate Brown echoed and amplified the false media headlines. ‘This is a democracy, not a dictatorship. We cannot have secret police abducting people in unmarked vehicles,’ Governor Brown tweeted.

For the next four weeks, antifa’s plan of escalating attacks on federal property to provoke a federal response for the cameras produced the exact propaganda they wanted. On any given night, there were dozens who identified as press. At its peak there were probably more than one hundred journalists and livestreamers, most of whom were sympathetic to the rioters and protesters. Instinctively, and at the urging or demand of others, their cameras were trained solely on law enforcement to capture their every move. Those who ran afoul of antifa’s rules were forced out or assaulted and robbed. Left-wing livestreamer Tristan Taylor was beaten to the ground and had his recording equipment stolen.

In mid-July, the federal government put up a strong reinforced barrier around the courthouse. Other barriers previously put up were quickly torn apart. This one was made of thick steel, and it was reinforced by concrete blocks on the other side. The fence withstood for many days, but on the fifty-ninth night of rioting, hundreds gathered with tools and equipment to bring down the barrier. They used electric saws to cut into the fence, but the holes they made were too small for people to fit through. Next, they tied rope around strategic points of the fence, and hundreds of rioters participated in pulling it down.

Every use of force by officers, whether it be tear gas, smoke, pepper balls, or arrests, was heavily scrutinized. Out-of-context video snippets were released on social media and published by news outlets, generating mass rage and universally negative press for law enforcement and the Trump administration. The officers were called ‘Trump’s gestapo,’ ‘storm troopers,’ and ‘thugs’ by Democratic politicians and the media.

One new phenomenon that developed over the weeks of rioting was antifa activists masquerading as press in order to avoid being arrested by police or to get closer to them to throw projectiles. They simply printed out homemade media badges and wrote ‘press’ on their clothing. On multiple occasions, they were seen participating in violence themselves, such as throwing rocks and fireworks at officers or blinding them with flashlights. Sometimes they actively provoked the police into arresting them so their comrades could record video and send out tweets about police ‘targeting’ media. This was effective, and the ACLU of Oregon sued Portland police and federal agents on behalf of left-wing legal observers and journalists in July. A federal judge granted an emergency injunction exempting anyone who identified as a journalist from dispersal orders.

From May through August 2020, hundreds had been taken into custody by law enforcement. But the result was the same for almost everyone: the Multnomah County district attorney dropped the charges, even the serious felonies. Assarrah Butler, the accused riot supplier who, in June, sped off in her car, hitting other vehicles, was originally charged with felony riot, felony failure to perform duties of driver to injured person, felony criminal mischief, felony fleeing, reckless driving, and reckless endangering. Every single charge was dropped. Likewise, an accused arsonist who allegedly admitted to roommates she was part of antifa, had all her charges dismissed. The dropping and dismissal of their felony charges were the norm, not the exception.

As I left Seattle, I mourned for the law-abiding people who had been terrorized into silence. They were completely failed by their elected leaders. And despite the organized violence playing out in the open, the media headlines still denied the existence of antifa. ‘How much more violence and chaos by antifa are politicians willing to accept?’ I asked myself while on the train out of the city. Unfortunately, a whole lot more.

As demonstrated with window breaking, it only takes a small group of people—even just one person—to set off a chain reaction. It makes sense that the overwhelming majority of those arrested at random are not aligned with antifa ideology. They don’t need to be in order to play a role in the riots. The smashing of businesses’ windows serves as an open invitation to opportunist looters and rioters to wreak havoc. That’s the genius of antifa’s riot strategy: they only have to light the match.

Accusations of there being ‘secret police’ and ‘unidentified federal agents’ were false. Every officer wore official uniforms that displayed their agency via badges on the shoulders with clear words on the front that read ‘POLICE.’ That politicians and journalists did not or pretended not to recognize the uniforms is not an excuse. And no one was ever ‘disappeared.’ All those detained were properly processed and read their Miranda rights. Most were released within hours.

After the election, antifa stepped up their violence even though it appeared that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had won over Donald Trump. On November 4, 2020, several hundred antifa gathered in downtown Portland. Wearing black uniforms and masks, they held a large banner that read: ‘WE DON’T WANT BIDEN—WE WANT REVENGE!’ After marching, they proceeded to smash up dozens of businesses and property on West Burnside Street using hammers and other tools. One of the buildings targeted was Saint Andre Bessette Church. In response to the riot, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown activated the National Guard—a first since riots began six months prior. Thirteen people were arrested. The majority had their charges immediately dropped. The damage to the Catholic church was so severe that it had to halt its charity work and outreach to the city’s large homeless population.

Meanwhile, the daily violent antifa protests were becoming more organized and sophisticated. Media pundits inaccurately described what was happening as spontaneous and organic, but what I saw on antifa social media accounts was a deliberate, strategic, and organized plan to grow and entrench the riots. Through advertising on Reddit, Instagram, Snapshot, and Twitter, they were widely successful in getting support not just from antifa fans but also from the wider left.

All that occurred on just the first night of rioting in Portland. It continued the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. For weeks, rioters descended on the Justice Center every night as if it were a ritual. They’d surround the building, confront the police standing guard, and attack them with projectiles and mortar explosives. Many of them used powerful lasers against the police that could burn eyes and cause permanent damage to vision. By the middle of the summer, these lasers became so numerous that the rioters who carried them organized into their own ‘unit, and the protests began to look like laser shows.

Despite what was happening before our eyes, left-wing politicians and media denied antifa played a role. House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called the movement ‘imagery’ during a congressional debate. And even though the public could plainly see masked militants openly planning and carrying out riot operations, we were still told there is ‘no evidence’ of organized antifa. ‘Who caused the violence at protests? It wasn’t antifa,’ declared one gaslighting Washington Post ‘fact-checker’ analysis, for example.