Richie McGinnis is an expert on all things leftist violence, including Antifa. He is a former White House correspondent for the Daily Caller and founder of Pigeon Press. In this interview, we discuss the similarities between what we saw in the streets of Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois, in the early morning hours of August 9th, 2020, and what we are seeing today.
00:09:08.680And they're all yelling at him, a bunch of white people telling him to get out of the way and let them, you know, basically agitate the police.
00:09:14.760So Portland is definitely has done a 180 as far as their perspective on race relations and their responsibility to go out there.
00:09:24.520And I guess creating chaos somehow in their minds solves this situation.
00:09:28.700I mean, whether it's ICE or DHS or Portland PD, my opinion was always the fact that, you know, the more that you beat up on conservative commentators who might be out there, the more that you agitate police, that the worse that makes your cause look, the best thing you can do is go out there and actually be peaceful.
00:09:46.460So what do you think, what do you think Antifa's goals are at this point?
00:09:49.440Because obviously they can see the hammer coming down, right?
00:09:51.940This is the first time, at least since Antifa's really emerged in the 21st century and in large part, that it seems like the feds are really just intent on destroying them.
00:10:00.860What do you think their strategy is now?
00:10:38.760A lot of the conversations about strategies and whatnot take place through encrypted apps.
00:10:45.080In 2020, I was in a lot of those, infiltrated a lot of those groups.
00:10:48.480And that's where they're really, you know, planning the most extreme measures like building Molotov cocktails.
00:10:53.780And, you know, they'll do it also through meet and greets, you know, at their safe houses, which they have throughout the city.
00:11:00.860And so if they do operate similar to the way that a terrorist cell would operate, with that being said,
00:11:06.820it's almost impossible to say all these people are Antifa because ultimately there's a group, a number of groups of people out there.
00:11:14.660They're like the first timers who come out there and want to test it out.
00:11:17.920They usually most of them will leave when the violence starts to happen.
00:11:21.460Then there's like the hardcore young people who are new to the game, but they they can be very dangerous because, you know, they have a lot of energy.
00:11:28.860They're kind of ignorant to how these things can devolve into chaos and get really dangerous.
00:11:33.860And and then there are like the, you know, salty locals who have been out there since 2020 and they come out and you see the same people every night.
00:11:40.580And so between those three groups, there are a certain number who are affiliated and or communicating with Antifa.
00:11:47.460But just because they're wearing all black, you know, it doesn't mean that they're necessarily explicitly like, oh, yeah, let's go out and firebomb this place.
00:11:53.540I mean, that's what seems to make it tricky. Obviously, Trump declared them to be a terrorist, you know, cell, but it was domestic.
00:12:00.460So there's not really any like legal. Nothing changes legally unless he were to declare them like a foreign terrorist organization.
00:12:06.700Tim's made the point that they are because Antifa does operate like in Paris and Berlin and et cetera, et cetera.
00:12:11.900But specifically in the United States, like you're saying, it gets a bit muddied who's in, who's out.
00:12:16.240I mean, some of these clubs like the John Brown Gun Club, maybe do you start there because that seems to be a bit more formal.
00:12:21.720Yeah, we saw the John Brown Gun Club. That's a tongue twister outside of doing security in Seattle at the Chaz.
00:12:31.580So if you guys remember, Chaz was a six block area that the Seattle police chief and mayor, Mayor Durkin and Carmen Best was the police chief, capitulated a six block area to the protesters.
00:12:42.980And what's the first thing they did? Set up borders with checkpoints and put armed guards at those borders.
00:12:49.040And so we had a couple of encounters with members of the John Brown Gun Club and right at my alma mater in D.C.
00:12:55.460I mean, D.C. of all places for a gun club. Yeah.
00:12:58.440But Georgetown in western northwest D.C., there was a flyer for the John Brown John Brown Gun Club in Red Square, which is one of the main squares in Georgetown.
00:13:09.380And it was soliciting applications. I don't I mean, it takes like a year to get a concealed carry permit in D.C.
00:13:15.140So I don't know exactly how that functions. But the fact of the matter is those groups should be examined.
00:13:20.500And this is the same as the funding that comes from the protests. Who's who's paying for the signs?
00:13:25.840Who's paying to transport these people in and out? Well, the answer is the names are constantly changing by design.
00:13:31.800So the open if you follow like George Soros's Open Society Foundation, you'll see they give to well, in this election cycle, it might be called indivisible.
00:13:39.800And in the next one, it'll be called something different. So they'll fund the side of the transportation, the signage.
00:13:46.080They'll print all that stuff out. And then you have another level of agitators who are specifically, you know, organizing themselves in much seedier, more shadowy realms, not not through the nonprofits.
00:14:00.240But they capitalize on that protest as a power vacuum. So it is it's it's complicated by design.
00:14:07.500And that's the that's kind of the scary part. But ultimately, I think if you're investigating it, you do two things.
00:14:13.000You follow the actual people who are perpetrating violence in the street.
00:14:18.040And, you know, if you arrest them, you know, you investigate them, you find who they were communicating with.
00:14:23.220And then on the other side, you follow the money because the money is where these protests are actually being sprung up all the social media arms.
00:14:31.280And, you know, that takes a lot of resources and people to to get these protests to actually take place, whether it's the no kings, whether it's the anti Tesla stuff.
00:14:40.660And all of this stuff is funded by groups like indivisible. And it's it's it's like a web of various nonprofits.
00:14:48.780And that's the same way that they do it in the Middle East, by the way.
00:14:52.340Dude, I mean, that it's that and you see like in Portland. I mean, I keep going back to Portland.
00:14:56.440That's just where a lot of the content is right now, where the Portland police just kind of stand down.
00:15:01.600I think that'd be the most gratuitous explanation of what's going on.
00:15:04.660The Portland police were certainly less confrontational than definitely in 2020.
00:15:08.740And from what I can gather, definitely right now than any of the federal troops who come in.
00:15:14.640So at the time, it was DHS surrounding the federal courthouse.
00:15:17.760And, you know, Portland also the Portland PD.
00:15:20.320Yeah. Also, it's kind of like darned if you do, darned if you don't, because the policies that are surrounding them as a local police department are very, very strict.
00:15:31.580And, you know, the last thing that they want is another BLM situation where some somebody gets violent and then, you know, they get hurt and things, everything gets worse.
00:15:41.880So in a lot of ways, they're handcuffed with what kind of nonlethals they can use.
00:15:45.800And you've seen around the ICE facility, that's definitely not the case.
00:15:50.320I mean, what does this say about the United States, the environment we're in?
00:15:55.000I mean, obviously here at TimCast, civil war predictions are quite rife.
00:16:00.920I mean, yeah, I don't know if I'm – I'm closer to that position than I've ever been because I'm seeing a vast chunk of the country that's just egging on political violence.
00:16:09.700They love seeing what happened to Charlie Kirk.
00:16:11.580I mean, they would give this like half-hearted condemnation, but ultimately they were like, well, you're still a fascist at the end of the day.
00:16:16.500And I'm like, how do I share a country with these people ultimately?
00:16:24.460It's crazy because I was bumping between, you know, the Proud Boys during all the stuff, the Steel stuff, and then the counter protesters who were in D.C.
00:16:32.260And it really is – it's like two completely different worlds.
00:16:36.260The fact of the matter is is that right now the way that all the algorithms are set up on Twitter, whatever it is, YouTube, Instagram, Meta, whatever you want to call it, they direct you towards two different – one of two echo chambers if you're looking at political content.
00:16:53.400And when it comes to these kinds of protests and stuff, and this has been the case in 2020 as well as now, if you say Antifa terrorist does X, you're going to get more retweets than if you say a guy wearing all black did this because you don't know what his background is.
00:17:12.040And look, I get it, but it does create a situation.
00:17:16.420And then the other side is taking that same clip and, you know, cutting it up, taking it out of context, just that one part where the cop pepper sprays whoever.
00:17:24.940And then they say, look at the police brutality.
00:17:26.540So you have the exact same clip that's being viewed completely differently by the two different sides of the country.
00:17:31.860And unfortunately, with social media, people aren't willing to, like, kind of look and get the bigger picture.
00:17:36.080If you look at Jacob Blake, the shooting that kicked off, the police-involved shooting that kicked off all of the riots in Kenosha, he was armed with a knife.
00:17:44.440And the video that went across social media caused the NBA to cancel games, you know, you have the entire media saying that he was shot in front of his kids.
00:18:08.440And so they came out because he had a warrant for his arrest.
00:18:11.100And those kids, you know, were the kids also of the woman that he had battered.
00:18:15.820So he was trying to, the video shows him get tased as he's trying to get into the car.
00:18:20.820And it didn't show the fact that he was armed with a knife.
00:18:23.140And then he was also tased previously to that.
00:18:26.720And the police had done everything they could to non-lethally subdue him.
00:18:30.340And he was effectively potentially entering that vehicle to, you know, kidnap the kids.
00:18:35.100So that, that context is important and that's not what we're getting still to this day.
00:18:42.140And that's why I appreciate, you know, Tim Kast and going on there because you can talk about these things at greater length than just whatever's on your Twitter timeline.
00:19:04.580The echo chambers thing is an issue, but when I see people that believe that having a position on abortion, like Charlie Kirk's warrants death.
00:19:12.260I mean, I don't know if that's, if that's created by social media or if that's a division that already exists, that's just exploited by, by social media.
00:19:20.020Well, I don't think it's necessarily, well, it's created by social media in, I think a couple of different ways.
00:19:25.020Number one, like the content that people are actually viewing, but number two, the fact that social media makes you so hyper aware of all the things that you don't have.
00:19:32.540And I think if you're constantly jumping into the lives, by the way, behind filters and behind, you know, set up shoots, even people who rent, you know, Porsches to make themselves look richer.
00:19:43.440The image that you're seeing on social media is telling you, oh, the grass is greener over there, there, and that didn't exist in the past.
00:19:50.140So I think young people entering the job market, I entered, I graduated high school in 2008.
00:19:55.720And so, you know, it's a similar feeling, but it's, it's supercharged by the fact that we, we were using, you know, AOL instant messenger back then and like Blackberries.
00:20:05.560So it's, it's to a certain extent, there's a spiritual sickness that pervades across all of these dissident and extremist groups.
00:20:16.780And it causes them to branch out into their, their tribe, their digital media tribe, and that's their community now.
00:20:26.400So if you have all our local newspapers are dried up, you know, people aren't going to church.
00:20:30.540They don't have that aspect of community, uh, less people are doing sports and living in small towns.
00:20:35.780And so, you know, when we, whereas we growing up went outside to, you know, play with our buddies and ride on bikes for a couple hours.
00:20:43.600Like now they're sitting and playing video games, shooting people.
00:20:47.200I played Halo, but it was, you know, it wasn't everything that we did.
00:20:51.680Um, it just was, and, and you weren't, um, integrated with six different devices, uh, at the same time.
00:20:58.900So it's, I don't know where it goes from here because honestly it only seems to be getting worse and Trump still has two and a half more years.
00:21:16.080Well, it's like, even, even at the institutional level, like, okay, yeah, there's things we can mitigate as far as like Antifa and these sorts of things.
00:21:21.340But the, the issue you're addressing is really important, which is, I mean, the, the big, the big, you know, the big incidents have been carried out by like atomized young people.
00:21:31.120And a, because they're just tapped into this on this online world that they, they get that socialization bug out there.
00:21:38.120It kind of gives them this false sense of socialization.
00:21:40.840And maybe that can like mask the, um, the, the spiritual rot for like a proportion of time.
00:21:47.380And then they get radicalized on these online groups.
00:21:49.280That's one thing, like what the discords and everything, but then also like just the way the economy is and the, and the, and the, uh, way the, the, the pathways to matriculation for young adults is just completely broken down.
00:21:59.340So they just really feel like they have nothing to lose.
00:22:03.480And, um, that's a really petrifying thing.
00:22:05.420You have, so you have people with radical political ideology.
00:22:20.940And the irony of the whole thing is that the hollowing out of the middle class and the hollowing out of opportunities for young people to have a home and a, you know, a vehicle and a stable job.
00:22:31.860That all took place over 40 years across what I would call the uniparty.
00:22:36.360And I would put Barack Obama having even knocked on doors for him in 2008 as an idealistic 18 year old.
00:22:42.560You know, I would put him into the category of the uniparty who appealed to, I mean, he bailed out the banks in 2008.
00:22:47.960And so when that happens across the Reagan, Bush one, Clinton and Bush two, and then Obama, you know, that is actually the preconditions that created the opportunity for a Trump to actually take power.
00:23:04.060So there's, it's something ironic when they're saying, oh, everybody who voted for him is a Nazi and a fascist.
00:23:10.000Whereas when, if you look at it through a different lens, like I started working for Mark Levin in 2015 and I saw the Tea Party and then how that kind of played into a lot of the grassroots approaches that Trump took to his platform.
00:23:22.540And something as simple as build a wall, I've talked to hundreds of border patrol agents.
00:23:27.160They all say a wall is a good idea because you can't drive across the border.
00:23:31.000So, you know, and if you kind of have to climb, that's harder than walking.
00:23:37.200So, and then everybody's saying it's the dumbest thing in the world in 2016 when Trump was running on that platform.
00:23:42.460And so it's like this detachment from reality that's now taking place because everybody has such a personal animus towards Trump, but they can't see the historical antecedents for that.
00:23:51.020And it's, it's like, they're all saying it's unprecedented.
00:24:00.960And that's, that's the last time that that's when the William Jennings Bryan really initiated that transition for the Democratic Party to go from the party of the South to the party of the working class by FDR's time.
00:24:11.600And now we're seeing that paradigm shift in the other direction.
00:24:14.300And it's just, I'm asking the question, 2016, I thought it was going to happen.
00:24:17.6202024, I thought, oh, the Democrats, maybe they'll get a reckoning.
00:24:20.760And it just doesn't seem like they've really figured out the fact that running for the same old business in D.C. is not going to work among the American voters right now, especially young people.
00:24:30.320Well, and it seems like Democrats now are beholden to that same activism class that drives the same sort of ideological impulses that drive Antifa.
00:24:39.560So it's like, that's why a lot of people are saying at this point, Antifa could be viewed as sort of the paramilitary arm of the Democrat Party.
00:24:52.760And it's, but they still, they're still maintaining that that is the case, that it's not really, and it's, it's so ridiculous because obviously now there are countless acts of violence that took place.
00:25:04.640You know, obviously there's a, was it Derek Reinhold in 2020?
00:25:10.480There's basically a member of the Patriot Pair just shot dead in the street by somebody who actively said that they were Antifa.
00:25:18.800I mean, literally publicly said that and then got into a shootout with police and died.
00:25:22.720And so it's, it's not new to see that Antifa has been people who actually acknowledge I'm part of Antifa have committed these violent acts.
00:25:31.400And they're still saying that it's some kind of myth.
00:25:34.060I think it's just, it's because of the echo chambers that we have, they're never going to be in front of somebody who really holds them accountable unless they're in some house hearing, you know, once in a blue moon.
00:25:44.700So we're also in a situation in DC where it's not just the country that's split between rural and urban and left and right, but the city is like, if you're a reporter, it's really difficult.
00:26:13.960Tim was, you know, in Ferguson and at Occupy.
00:26:17.220And then it's like really hard for the left to wrap their heads around the fact that all these people who voted for Obama then voted, turned around and voted for Trump.
00:26:26.380Well, I guess one more, one more question with Portland.
00:26:28.900And how effective, if the National Guard is able to finally deploy, how effective do you think that's going to be letting those federal agents do their job and conduct?
00:26:36.240Do you think they're actually going to be able to crack down on Antifa in any effective way?
00:26:39.640Because, I mean, there's a lot of those guys.
00:26:43.620I mean, obviously, this case that's pending that was just challenged, Trump being able to even bring them in.
00:26:50.320Well, the fact of the matter is, is first thing that happens is going to be what happened in 2020, which is the feds come in and then it kind of amplifies the response.
00:27:06.160And so in the short term, I think that will definitely happen.
00:27:09.560And it's just a question of what the numbers are, because ultimately, however big that swelling of the crowd is, they're going to have to match that from an enforcement perspective so that they don't have to use the force multipliers that make things get out of control.
00:27:22.880Like, you know, tear gas and pepper spray, because ultimately, when cops use those measures, it's because they're overwhelmed, it's because they're outnumbered, it's because they need to get things under control.
00:27:31.920So I think if you're going to get it under control, you really just need to make sure that your numbers in terms of enforcement are greater than what they're going to be able to dish out in the streets on the on the other side of things.
00:27:41.620And that's where you'll see it maintain more of a peaceful posture than if, you know, they're overwhelmed and don't have any support from local PD and don't have any support from the local government.
00:27:51.980Well, yeah, because that's, I mean, that's what, that's what I've seen is there's like what, nine, 900 federal agents that are available to even protect these buildings.
00:28:00.200So it's like, yeah, the National Guard is a no brainer, because obviously Portland police, I mean, the city of Portland gave the feds a code violation for boarding up the windows.
00:28:09.040So there's like, it's clearly they're antagonistic to the feds at this point.
00:28:13.500Yeah, and it's the same thing as 2020.
00:28:14.560I mean, people, Jenny, literally the Chaz took place in Seattle, because from the governor Inslee on down to Mayor Durkan wanted to put their thumb in the eye of Trump and get the national attention of, I'm the Democratic politician who's standing up to fascism.
00:28:33.620And then you get the national attention, you get the spotlight.
00:28:36.080And that's, it's the same thing taking place yet again.
00:28:39.020And so it's going to be a matter of whether or not they're able to muster the actual number of, of people that they need out in the streets, defending these various, whether it's the ice facility or the federal courthouse, you know, if they're overwhelmed and boom, here we have tear gas.