Ep. 2013 - The Industrial Revolution Has Been a Disaster For The Human Race

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Michael Knowles Show

Episode: Ep. 2013 - The Industrial Revolution Has Been a Disaster For The Human Race
Date: July 10, 2026
Host: Michael Knowles
Guest: Andy Ngo

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Overview

This episode of The Michael Knowles Show delves into the roots and escalation of political violence in America, challenging mainstream explanations such as polarization, immigration, and failing institutions. Knowles argues that the real overlooked driver is rapid technological change—originally sparked by the Industrial Revolution and now intensified during the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. The episode features investigative journalist Andy Ngo, who provides a detailed account of recent Antifa-related terrorism cases in Texas, the media's downplaying of organized left-wing violence, and links between leftist ideology and contemporary violence.

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Main Themes and Structure

1. The Real Root of Political Violence ([01:30]–[18:00])

• Knowles critiques typical causes cited for rising political violence: immigration, polarization, and institutional decay are acknowledged but seen as secondary.
• Central thesis:
  “Not enough people seem to remember that the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” (03:00, Knowles)
• He draws from Ted Kaczynski’s (the Unabomber) manifesto and the Marxist tradition—stressing periods of technological upheaval consistently trigger unrest.
• Parallels are drawn from historical waves of political violence post-Industrial Revolution (Haymarket Affair, Ludlow Massacre, early-20th-century anarchist bombings) to today’s unrest.
• Key Quote:
  “It does seem to me that periods of massive technological change leave societies very vulnerable to violence.” (11:32, Knowles)

Notable Insight:

The show links today’s cultural and political disruptions (including debates over gender and body, mass migration, and media polarization) to the alienating effects of technological progress, not only economic or demographic change.

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2. Contradictions in Conservative and Progressive Ideology ([18:00]–[22:00])

• Conservatives historically advocate for both traditional values and unrestrained capitalism, which Knowles argues is fundamentally incompatible:
  “When you have massive innovation, massive technological change especially, that is necessarily going to upset traditional values and family dynamics.” (19:20, Knowles)
• The Trump-era populism was, in Knowles’s view, a pushback by displaced workers against these contradictions.

Highlight:

Kaczynski’s critique of leftism is briefly explored—framing “over-socialization” and groupthink as endemic, with Knowles using pop culture examples of consensus-thinking condescension among progressives.

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3. Media Denial and the Antifa Threat

Interview with Andy Ngo ([19:41]–[39:49])

Ngo provides a forensic account of the July 4, 2025 Antifa-led attack on a Texas ICE facility:

• The attack involved luring staff and police, then ambushing them; a police officer was shot.
• The group (16 members) operated with coordinated safe houses, encrypted communications, tactical firearms training, and explicit Antifa political motivations.
• Convictions:
  “All nine who went to trial, and seven others who pleaded guilty, were convicted... eight of the 16 were sentenced with two decades in prison. The longest sentences we've ever seen for convicted Antifa terrorists.” ([23:02], Ngo)

Key Segments & Quotes:

• On the liberal media’s portrayal:
  “Journalists who are writing pieces like that... are sympathizers of antifa terrorism. What they are doing is not just spin and bias. Their whole world of lies about antifa is crumbling.” ([25:26], Ngo)
• Ngo points to the media's downplaying (“noise demo” instead of attack) as an attempt to lay groundwork for future pardons and manipulate the historical record via Wikipedia and AI citations.
• Knowles draws a parallel to how the state broke up the Ku Klux Klan and Mafia, arguing similar scrutiny and laws (like RICO) are valid:
  “Isn't this exactly the way that the government broke up the Ku Klux Klan?” ([27:05], Knowles)
• Media double standards:
  Ngo and Knowles note the vastly different treatment of left- vs right-wing violence, referencing incident reporting from The Guardian, The New York Times, and January 6th coverage.

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4. The Political Mainstreaming of Antifa & Leftist Violence

• Prominent figures:
  Knowles lists left-wing online commentators and progressive politicians (Hasan Piker, Rashida Tlaib) who allegedly normalize or excuse violence.
  “Does this mean, is it going too far to say that the Democrats are now the party of Antifa?” ([31:15], Knowles)
• Ngo’s assessment:
  “I think it's yet again evidence that the Democrat Party is the party of political violence. And the fact that we have a congresswoman like Rashida Tlaib expressing sympathy... when she is in the government...” ([31:45], Ngo)
• Judicial implications: Despite some Democrats blaming Trump’s executive orders, Ngo clarifies,
  “They were prosecuted for crimes that have long been on the books. The left is shocked and appalled that the law would ever be applied to them.” ([35:15], Ngo)
• Recent developments: Antifa prosecutions are now expanding, with multiple indictments in Minnesota linking coordinated networks and ideology via online propaganda sites like Crimethink.

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5. Looking Ahead: Ideological Battles and Andy Ngo’s Next Book

• Final discussion:
  • Acknowledgement of continued Antifa threats and the political willful blindness to their organization.
  • Ngo teases his new book, The Zizians, examining a “trans death cult” and surging violence associated with it—a further exploration of how ideological extremes and identity merge in contemporary leftist violence:
    “The book is about... a trans death cult that have been linked to eight deaths. And they were able to use leftist grievance ideology... to allegedly commit killing after killing...” ([39:03], Ngo)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Political violence’s real roots (Industrial Revolution): 03:00–18:00
• Conservative contradiction on tradition and innovation: 19:20–22:00
• Antifa Texas case breakdown – Andy Ngo: 20:41–28:18
  • Media denial and coordination evidence: 22:35–26:59
  • Media agenda and future pardons: 25:26–26:59
• On politicians and activist normalization of violence: 30:56–32:48
• Broader prosecutions and links to other states: 35:55–37:08
• Future of ideological violence, preview of Ngo’s new book: 37:37–39:18

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Noteworthy Quotes

• Knowles:
  “The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” ([03:00])
• Ngo:
  “These are sympathizers of antifa terrorism... their whole world of lies about antifa is crumbling.” ([25:26])
  “Eight of the 16 were sentenced with two decades in prison—the longest sentences we've ever seen for convicted antifa terrorists.” ([23:02])
• On contemporary technological change:
  “If the fourth Industrial Revolution is about changing the relationship of human beings to technology... actually turning us into cyborgs... that might help to explain some of the violence we’re seeing.” ([15:44], Knowles)
• Final thought on law enforcement:
  “They were prosecuted for crimes that have long been on the books... The left is shocked and appalled that the law would ever be applied to them.” ([35:15], Ngo)

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Tone and Language

The episode has a sardonic, combative tone, striking against mainstream and left-liberal narratives. Both Knowles and Ngo are direct, skeptical of institutional narratives, and willing to cite controversial sources (Unabomber, Marx) to argue their points.

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Transcript

[A]

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And while lots of attention has been paid to causes like immigration polarization, decaying institutions, not enough people seem to remember that the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. We have the greatest journalist of antifa in the world coming on the show. That would be Andy Ngo to discuss the recent incarceration of Antifa operatives to give us a little tease into his next book, which is phenomenal, I can hardly tell you. But it occurs to me that while we're all pointing the blame game on the political violence that's increasing, a lot of people have been neglecting what might be the most obvious cause of it. And so look, the bad news is political violence is increasing and the political violence is coming from the left. And even leftists are beginning to admit that the political violence is coming from the left. And even when the leftists admit the political violence comes from the left, they're still hiding most of the left wing violence. We've talked about that a lot, okay, over the last eight, nine months. But it's clear they're still not counting the BLM riots that murdered dozens of people, destroyed over a billion dollars in property. They're still not counting most of that as political violence. They're still not counting attacks on right wing people and right wing institutions and churches and all that. They're still not counting a lot of that as left wing violence. And even still, just based on their very, very narrow definitions of left wing violence, you're seeing that it's overtaken right wing violence. So this is very dangerous for Everybody, it's dangerous for the left. You can't have a country. It's great news that the Trump administration comes out and says antifa's a terrorist organization. In the same way that we think of the Ku Klux Klan as a terrorist organization. We have antifa. Antifa, despite the protestations of the left, have uniforms, they have flags, they have meeting spots, they train together, they coordinate their attacks. They're a terrorist organization. And so the way to break them, the way that we broke the Ku Klux Klan, the way that Giuliani broke the Mafia, is by treating them as an organization and holding their members accountable. So we're starting to do that. That's all great. But what is driving it? A lot of the attacks from Antifa, including the one that just sent a bunch of them to prison, they're centered around immigration. So we say, okay, maybe it's immigration that's driving this. Some of the Antifa members are immigrants or children of immigrants. A lot of them are kind of pasty white leftists. But you say, well, the issue of immigration is clearly driving a lot of that and immigration's driving a lot. Myriad social problems that we've talked about ad nauseam, especially in the wake of the Mamdani elections last week. However, I don't think it's chiefly immigration then. People say, well, it's polarization. The left and the right used to be more similar. There was more of a uni party. Then the right wing broke into the Tea Party in populist era and the left wing got woke. And so the polarization is what's creating a lot of that political tension. Yeah, maybe to some degree, maybe decaying institutions. We no longer have faith in our institutions. And so because of that, we take matters into our own hands. We don't believe that the cops are there to protect us. The left thinks that the cops are evil and they need to be abolished, and the right thinks that the cops are being hamstrung by the political order. So they're not gonna protect us either. We gotta take matters into our own hands. Yeah, sure, there's a little bit of that too. The one cause though, that people haven't really made the connection to. And it just occurred to me the other day while I was reading the Unabomber manifesto, no joke telling on myself a little bit, but while I was reading Ted Kaczynski's the Industrial Society in Its Future, it occurred to me the chief driver of political violence in American history was the Industrial Revolution, the second Industrial Revolution. There have been Plenty of periods of political violence in American history. Probably, probably we think of the Civil War, that would be an example of it, which was right at the beginning of the second Industrial Revolution and did involve economic changes that pertain to slavery. But even. Let's just take that one out for a second. You know, you think of political violence in the 1960s and 70s with regard to civil rights and some of the social movements that were being funded by the Communists. You think of little rebellions that popped up in the 18th century, but the most sustained period of political unrest and violence in American history occurs from roughly the 1880s through the 1910s, basically right up to and right into World War I. That's when you had the Haymarket Affair, 1886. You had bombings in Chicago. You had Pullman guards shooting people, men being killed themselves. You had the homestead strike in 1892. You had the Pullman strike in 1894. You had the Ludlow massacre in 1914 in Colorado. You had the Wall street bombings in the 1910s and 20s by left wing anarchists, the exact same kind of people who would be called antiquari for today. You had Marxist professors from Harvard, no joke, setting off bombs in the Capitol, eerily similar to what we're looking at today. And it was occurring over that period of time. And what was driving it was not transgenderism or some cultural issue. It was being driven in part by immigrants, because immigrants were heavily involved in it. But the big social change that was going on was the Industrial Revolution, the second Industrial Revolution that was totally changing the relationship of citizen to state and of workers to employers and changing, changing how capital was being employed. And I think that we conservatives, because we realize that Karl Marx was like very possibly possessed by the devil. Excellent book by Paul Kenger, by the way. The devil and Karl Marx, highly recommend on this subject because of that. We kind of write off the Marxist critiques of markets and history, but the Marxists actually do make a fair number of interesting observations. Their prescriptions are horrible, but they do make interesting observations. And it does seem to me that periods of massive technological change leave societies very vulnerable to violence. And this is what brought me to Uncle Ted, the old Unabomber. Ted Kaczynski was a pretty sharp guy, graduate of top schools. Did he ever graduate or did he drop out anyway? Very top schools, top education. Think he got a little messed up by the CIA, goes totally crazy and becomes a murderer. But Uncle Ted, worth revisiting here, not emulating his tactics, obviously, but just revisiting his observations. He opens up his Manifesto Industrial Society and its Future by saying the industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. And he makes points about political change, especially political change on the right that I think we ought to take to heart. Because one of the recent overlords of the world, Klaus Schwab with the World Economic Forum, don't forget what he refers to this time period, as he calls it the fourth industrial revolution. You had the first industrial revolution, which brought you mechanized production. Then you have the second industrial revolution and that starts to bring you things like the assembly line, that starts to bring you things like electricity. Then you have the third industrial revolution. That's the data revolution. And now we're in this fourth industrial revolution where you have all of this kind of biohacking, artificial intelligence, dreams of transhumanism and cyborgs and really freaky stuff. Well, if we are in another industrial revolution, that might help to explain some of the changes that we're seeing, some of the violence we're seeing. So we'll get into the Unabomber's manifesto. But before we get to the best, the best reporter on antifa, Andy Ngo. First, though, I want to tell you about Armra. Go to Armra.com have you noticed that modern life has become a strange experiment? We spend most of our day indoors under artificial lights. We stare at screens from morning until night. 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Get 30% off your first subscription order. Go to armored.com knowles Enter knowles to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's a R M R A dot com knowles what does the Industrial Revolution have to say about political violence? Well, Kaczynski kind of opens up observing something really weird about Republican politics for the last 30 years. It's ebbed a little bit since the Trump administration and the economic populism. But before that, from the 90s, from the 80s really, through the middle of the 2010s, you would have these Republican politicians show up to the conservative group, and they'd say, on the one hand, we need to preserve traditional values and traditional institutions, and we need good old traditional family values. And then on the other hand, they would say we need creative destruction and unbridled capitalism and innovation and all. And they didn't see that those two things were in conflict. That when you have massive innovation, massive technological change especially, that is necessarily going to upset traditional values and family dynamics. And in many ways, the populism of the Trump era was an answer to that. A populism begun by Donald Trump himself, who was speaking out for workers whose jobs were displaced, whose towns were destroyed, who then became addicted to opioids and further led to a family breakdown. You have it from him all the way up to J.D. vance, who is this kind of perfect avatar of that critique of the way society's functioned for the last 30, 40 years. Kaczynski points out, he says, yeah, that was always going to happen, and this change in society was always going to lead to lots and lots of decay that are going to alienate us from nature, that are gonna alienate us from society, that are gonna treat human beings as machines and commodities, as if we're worshiping the dumb idol of the machines themselves. And then he reserves a great critique for modern leftism, which he says is based on self esteem, like low self esteem. It's based on self hatred. It's based on. Over socialization is another term, which is the idea that the left is much more prone to consensus thinking. Think about, I don't know if we have the, you know, those two images of the millennial girls. It's a millennial girl face. The one when she was interviewing Sydney Sweeney, the other one was doing another interview. And it's that kind of like, mm, mm, you think? And it's kind of like, wait, you think that two plus two equals four, you know, and I can't. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing my best Millennial girlface. But it's this condescension, which is in itself an appeal to consensus. So it's not arguing on the merits. It's just saying, you believe that thing that no fancy people believe. It's just as if a mocking smirk were somehow a substitute for argumentation. Well, what Mr. Kaczynski points out is that's kind of part of leftism, that the left and the right involve ideas. But more than that, being on the right or being on the left, they're dispositions, kind of ways of seeing the world and acting in the world and behaving. They're inclinations more than they are ideas. And this creates a perfect storm. So it's not that immigration isn't a big driver of the political violence. I think it is because immigration, especially mass migration of the scale that we've seen, really unprecedented in human history. When you just totally change the demographics of a country, the people are not gonna assimilate in time. They're gonna bring with them their tribal and factional ethnic hostilities with them, and you're going to get the breakdown of society in precisely the way George Washington feared, which is not political parties debating ideas, but actual factionalism. That's what's going on in New York. That's this new aoc, the DAC chick, Dario Lela Avila Chevalier, whatever her name is, she made this post that's now infamous and gone viral in which she excoriates ugly white women for taking all of the hot Arab and black men. This is like a real post that she made. This reflects not some political ideology or philosophy. This is just a pure ethnic and sexual hostility. So anyway, migration obviously plays a big role into that. The corruption and decadence of our institutions obviously plays a big role in that which pertains to the corruption of the media. Because if the media are going to tell you that the President is Hitler, as they've done with Trump for 10 years, then you're going to be more inclined to go stop Hitler, because you've been programmed to know that Hitler is the devil. He is the incarnation of evil. And so anyone who is compared to Hitler becomes a target. That obviously plays a role as well. But I think the special sauce on driving this political violence is probably the technological change. I mean, for goodness sakes, think about if the fourth Industrial Revolution is about changing the relationship of human beings to technology, not just plugging in some electricity or creating assembly lines which touch on the relationship between humans and technology, but actually turning us into cyborgs, saying that our natural bodies don't matter and our immaterial self is all that matters. Think about one of the crucial touch points of the political violence. It's transgenderism it's not just migration, which is also kind of about saying that bodies don't really matter to a body politic. You can swap out all the people, you'll have the same country. Because America's a creedal nation and we have a constitution. That isn't true. But then the other big touch point is all these trannies who are killing people and especially killing themselves at very, very high numbers. Well, what is that about? That is responding to technology that constantly isolates and alienates us from ourselves. To the point of saying that our bodies don't really matter and that we are something other than our bodies. It seems to me that is the key. Is this actually something we can kind of learn? We can learn from the Marxists and we can learn from the libertarian individualists, right wing terrorists. They agree, I guess the horseshoe works. But they do have a keen insight here. Not in how we react to these things. The way we react has to be to restore political order, to build up our institutions again. To get rid of. To deport the foreigners who really don't belong here and who make the country worse. To engage with technological development with some caution. Recognizing that technology can be a good thing, but it has to serve us rather than we serving it. And that's a tough dance to pull off. We have to recognize that if history is any predictor, we find ourselves in much the same historical circumstances as you saw during the very worst period for political violence ever in American history. Both on the technological level, on the percentage of the country that is foreign born, which reached its peak in the early 20th century. So much so that in 1924 we basically turned off immigration. And that was the case for 40 years. In other words, the political violence problem is not going to be solved by just talking more to the left. It's not going to be solved merely by arresting ANTIFA operatives. So that's a good start. It's not even going to be solved by deportations. So that would go a long way. We are in not history repeating itself, but history rhyming. We are in a moment where there is a playbook. We saw how this played out last time and it's very, very dangerous. So to help describe that danger a little bit, we have my friend Andy Ngo, the greatest antifa journalist. He's not a member of antifa, he's a journalist of antifa. Before we get to that, speaking of life and death, I want to tell you about Preborn. Go to preborn.com knowles k a w l e s the Fourth of July celebration is extra special. Looking back on the day that made this nation what it is 250 years later, America was dedicated to the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But every day thousands of unborn babies are killed. They can't advocate for themselves but you can by donating to preborn. Now I love preborn. I personally support this organization. I recognize that it's the best ROI just about you can think of when it comes to charity. They fundraise for their administrative costs separately. So every dollar that you give is going toward saving babies. And when a mother sees that baby on an ultrasound, that baby's chance of life is doubled. So right now if you want to donate, dial £250 say keyword baby b a b y that is £250 keyword baby or give securely at preborn.comKnowles K n o w l e s that is preborn.comKnowles Every gift is tax deductible and right now they are running a promo. In light of our nation's 250th birthday, I would prayerfully ask for you to consider giving a $250 special gift that 250 for America. 250. It's the right thing to do and you'll get a great tax write off for it. That is eight ultrasounds and the chance to save eight lives. Right now to donate l £250 say keyword baby £250 keyword baby or give [e-mail] knowles k w l E S Do not wait till New Year's Eve when you're trying to get all of your tax write offs in. Give right now and also give on New Year's Eve. FreeWomen.com Knowles Every gift is tax deductible. Okay, I'm very pleased to bring on Andy Ngo. The New York Times tells me that these people are not terrorists or murderers or anything, but it says that they're protesters.

[B]

The truth is what came out at trial. The lies from the liberal media are coming from journalists who are sympathetic to the terrorism. Their whole world of lies about antifa is crumbling.

[A]

Members of an antifa cell in Texas have been sentenced, some are saying severely, I would say appropriately, for an attack on an ICE facility and the attempted murder of a cop of a police officer. And mainstream Democrats are whining and screaming and crying about it. We're talking about members of Congress, we're talking about the New York Times. I am so pleased to be joined by probably the greatest journalist of antifa going on some 10 years now, however long it's. That would be my friend Andy Ngo to tell us what this case is all about. Andy, I just saw you in the UK and now we were up very late chatting and drinking and eating and smoking cigars. And now this big antifa story comes up and I have to bring you on my show.

[B]

Thanks so much for having me on, Michael. I've been tracking the story from day one, just about a year ago. So on background, I assume most people haven't heard about it. I'm not surprised. The liberal media hasn't covered this case at all for reasons that I'll explain. So on the 4th of July last year, 2025, there was a group of antifa militants in the Dallas area who went to Alvarado, Texas, and launched large explosive fireworks to lure out staff that were working inside the ICE facility, agents inside and police who were called to the area. And then it was an ambush. Shooting one of the militants in the group, who through court, we've learned was the ringleader, Benjamin Song, shot an Alvarado police officer in the neck and then he hid in the wooded areas and became a Texas top 10 most wanted, FBI most wanted suspect for 11 days. There was a huge manhunt across Texas and he was eventually captured, but we learned that he had been moved from safe house to safe house. There was a whole network of these antifa militants who were part of this cell in the North Texas area.

[A]

Okay, now hold on, I gotta pause you there. I gotta pause you there because the New York Times tells me that these people are not terrorists or murderers or anything, but it says that they're protesters. So what you just described is not a protest. What you just described is a terrorist attack or at least. Or at least an act of political violence. And then it says it's protesters accused of antifa ties. It's not saying there are any antifa ties, but you're describing a tightly knit network of safe houses and people who are conspiring to commit these actions. So who's telling the truth? You were the New York Times.

[B]

The truth is what came out at trial. So 16 of them were federally charged with felonies ranging from providing materials support terrorists to conspiracy to attempted murder and other serious charges. And at trial we learned because five of them pleaded guilty and agreed to flip and testify for the prosecution. And they admitted to the court that they organized behind an antifa ideology, which is why I say that this was an antifa cell. It's what the prosecutors said. And it's also what was proven at court, there was extensive recovered signal communications from their various groups that they had established on signal to coordinate, to plan. They had trained with firearms and tactical trainings before the attack. So they proved beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury that this was a terrorist attack. And all nine who went to trial and there were seven others who pleaded guilty were convicted. And yesterday eight, eight of the 16 were sentenced with two decades in prison. The the longest sentences we've ever seen for convicted antifa terrorists and the case that is so important because it's the first time in U.S. history that the federal government has accused and then was able to get convictions for suspects accused of being part of an anti fossil and terrorism as well. So now the liberal media can and Democrats can no longer say that there's no evidence of organized antifa terror violence. There is. We have 16 convictions and eight of them so far are looking at 450 years in federal prison. Their legal woes are not over. They still have the state trials upcoming. The state of Texas is prosecuting them as well on things like the state equivalent of rico, attempted murder conspiracy. So they have a lot of things going on that they have to deal with still.

[A]

But hold on, I have to stop you there Andy, because the liberal media are going to continue to deny this. In fact, an outlet from where you're living now in the uk, the Guardian came out and denied that there was really any such thing as antifa in their reporting on this case. They said look, this is a loose collection of activists who, who all go to the same bookshops and join the same gun clubs. I kid you not, it's almost a verbatim read on how they reported this. And so they say there's no such thing as antifa. There's no real organization, there's no shared ideology, there's no conspiracy, no training. That seems to still be the party line even after this conviction.

[B]

So the journalists who are writing pieces like that, and there are many of them, this one with the Guardian, I'm very familiar with his work, he's an American. These are sympathizers of antifa terrorism. And I think what's particularly disturbing about them calling these convicted terrorists protesters or activists and these are the words they use. And they also call the shooting a noise demo. That's what they actually print. I think they're anticipating that hopefully these types of pieces can then be used in Wikipedia citations, AI and Google citations. And then at some point when there's a Democrat president, these articles could be put in front of that president to try to get pardons. Fortunately, the state of Texas is still pursuing serious felonies against them. But what the media are doing is not, it's not just spin and bias. I believe that they have an agenda that they're anticipating and also they're doing it because their whole world of lies about Antifa is crumbling. We and notice that they don't go into the details of what was presented at trial. They don't quote from the five who flipped on their comrades and testified. And they're about to be sentenced next week by the way. And the evidence is indisputable. There were stipulated facts that were presented to the court and signed by those who pleaded guilty. And that was the strongest evidence. The prosecutors were able to get the deleted and destroyed encrypted signal messages and show that how coordinated and planned they were.

[A]

Yeah, it seems to me kind of mind boggling that you could deny that it's an organization and coordinated and planned when you have not just the signal messages but you have the uniforms, the Antifa flags in this particular instance, you know, the bookshops, you know, the actions that they undertook at the facility. And so I think you're probably right. The most charitable view you can make is they know that they're lying here, but they are sympathetic. They think that they'll get elected Democrats who will also be sympathetic and they can try to secure pardons. I mean there's a very good basis for all of it. You mentioned the RICO charges here that the states are trying to pursue RICO which is how the state ended up cracking organized crime. One thing I don't get, especially from the guardians reporting is they say that to prosecute Antifa in this way is a threat to free speech. To go after them and look at the bookshops and the ideology and the zines and the materials that really poses a threat to free speech. And I think, well, hold on. Isn't this exactly the way that the government broke up the Ku Klux Klan? They didn't have any problem when it was going after the kkk. They didn't have a problem when it was going after the mafia. What is unique about Antifa that makes it such a big issue?

[B]

They're not being prosecuted on an ideology that would be illegal and that they just can't do that. The reason why ideology was even explored by the prosecutors is because there was a lot of evidence that the ideology that they organized, this so called antifa ideology was anti government and was for the purposes of insurrection against the state. So that's why ideology came in. It explained, provided context to why they met one another, organized, why they did the tactical training. Again, the lies from the liberal media are coming from journalists who are sympathetic to the terrorism. I feel very comfortable saying that. I've read the writings of some of these authors over the years and they apply one standard, for example, to the January 6th protesters and rioters and then a completely different standard to those who were involved in ambush shooting.

[A]

Of course, you even see this in the reporting from The Guardian on January 6th. I figured it was the Guardian in the New York Times. It was One of the two, maybe both where you recall, well, hold on. On January 6th, the only person who was killed in political violence was one of the rioters, one of the demonstrators killed by a trigger happy cop. Here the activists and the protesters, so called went out and lit off explosives and shot a cop in the neck. The real heyday, it seems to me of Antifa, when this really came to the fore of the public imagination was at this point about 10 years ago when Antifa was showing up to a lot of the speeches that a lot of people in conservative media were giving. They showed up to one of my speeches, one of my debates at Pittsburgh. You were very, very on the money about covering that story when media outlets really didn't want to touch it. Ultimately that ended in a federal prosecution. But I think a lot of people think Antifa just sort of went away. That was something for the late 2000 teens, early 2000s, but now they've kind of gone away. Now where does it stand? Where does the threat of Antifa lie?

[B]

Well, the nature of them being a decentralized movement is that there's not going to be one direction of movement across entire groups, plural. For example, Rose City, Antifa and the Antifa in Portland have largely pulled back, but in places like Minnesota and in Texas they've accelerated. So we don't really know how they're going to respond going forward given the long sentences and convictions that happen against their comrades. I am tracking what they're saying on places like Blue sky and a lot of them have been issuing death threats and calls of violence against the two sentencing judges yesterday.

[A]

What do you make of the more prominent left wing media figures and politicians who are not card carrying members of Antifa, but guys like Hasan Piker who call for the murder of multiple US Senators say the streets should run red in the blood of capitalists. America deserves terror attacks like 9 11. What do you make of Rashida Tlaib, who is a Democrat Congressman who comes out says that the sentencing of the Antifa activists and murderers was a tragedy, was egregious, and they should have gotten off the hook. Does this mean, is it going too far to say that the Democrats are now the party of Antifa? Has that not quite happened yet? Or is Antifa gaining ground within the main stream of the party? Or are those just a couple of fringe actors that we don't need to worry so much about?

[B]

I think it's yet again evidence that the Democrat Party is the party of political violence. And the fact that we have a congresswoman like Rashida Tlaib expressing sympathy with those who were engaged in anti government terrorism when she is in the government and many, many others like her, elected at local levels, not in Congress, but, but serving on city councils across the United States with affiliations to the dsa. And people like Hassan Piker and other influencers on the left have been normalizing the language of political violence so that, for example, when one of their comrades commits acts of terror, it gets support or, and, or is whitewashed by liberal media and figures on the left. And then they call for retribution and revenge against those who seek to hold them accountable, as we're seeing now with threats against a court.

[A]

Of course, of course. But the Rashida Tlaib faction does seem to be growing. You know, there were these big elections in New York where the Democratic Socialists were winning with the support of Zoran Mamdani. You saw that the Democrat Socialists now, according to cnn, have more support among mainstream Democrats than elected Democrat members of Congress. So I think you're probably right about the political violence problem. Rashida Tlaib goes on and says, no, the problem with these prosecutions is that they're the result of President Trump's new National Security order classifying Antifa as a domestic terror organization. This is gonna be used to clamp down on the left more broadly. My understanding of the case was the case really has almost nothing to do with, with President Trump declaring Antifa a domestic terror organization.

[B]

It has nothing to do in terms of, if you look at what they were prosecuted with, the legislation that applied is it's not new legislation. They don't cite prosecutors, don't cite the executive order or anything, but to me it is clear. And also the fact that members of the Trump administration have claimed this as a victory is that the DOJ is taking a directive from the executive that this movement must be treated as domestic terrorist threats. We saw what happened under former Attorney General Barr during the 2020 BLM Antifa riots. I saw a lot of terroristic crimes that were being committed by Antifa and BLM and other violent extremists in places like Portland and Seattle. And they were not prosecuted, or if they were, there were some, they would get these sweetheart plea deals where they would have to do community service and get probation for maybe six months, and then the charge would be expunged from their record. So that that's what happens when, you know, if the DOJ wasn't following the agenda of the president. Unfortunately, we have the DOJ now that understands and has already experienced the threats from Antifa and they're acting with the current legislation that exists and prosecuting these violent extremists for crimes that they commit. And the shock that we are seeing from the far left shows that they've been so comfortable with committing terror and killings and violence that when they are held accountable, they view it as a travesty and a human rights violation.

[A]

It's such an indictment of the DOJ in years past. The way Rashida Tlaib is presenting this, it's as if Trump changed the law all of a sudden. But he didn't to your point, he just said, hey, guys, you should focus on the people who are committing the terrorism. In other words, the crimes that are already on the books. And so then they're prosecuted for crimes that have long been on the books. And the left is shocked and appalled that the law would ever be applied to them. What an indictment that is of our justice system. What an indictment that is of our own side that we did not insist upon that for a problem that has been festering for years and years. Well over a decade.

[B]

Correct. But perhaps ending on a positive note, I don't think that what we've seen in Texas ends in Texas. Just recently, there were 15 accused Antifa militants who were federally indicted in the state of Minnesota and accused of conspiring to injure and or impede federal agents and officers. And that's a serious felony. And those people were arrested. And some of the evidence that has come out in the indictment is that there's an antifa, a clear antifa blog association with at least one of the members on Crimethink, actually, which is this online antifa propaganda site, blog, and its writings and materials encouraging violence and terrorism is really influential in antifa and anarchist circles. In fact, the DIPA couple, the man and woman who were convicted for the bombing of the event you were at at the University of Pittsburgh, they had material from Crimethink. So in little pieces, we're Seeing how across the US the tactics and networks are linked as well as the propaganda materials and the training materials, of course,

[A]

it seems to me a willful ignorance on the part of most people in politics who pretend that there is not an antifa ideology and connected antifa networks. It's a kind of a political nominalism that tells you only focus on the particulars. These guys have nothing to do with each other. Meanwhile, they have uniforms and flags. It seems pretty unified to me, relatively speaking, for this kind of a political group. Before I let you go, Andy, I understand you're working on another book, is that correct?

[B]

I am. Thanks for asking me about it. I will say more about it very, very soon.

[A]

When I say I understand you're working on another book, I say that because I have a copy of it. And Andy, this is not flattery and I'm not just telling you to. I mean, can we tell people the title, since you can pre order it right now? So the title is the Zizians. The Zizians. And it's based on this crazy trans cult, like the wackiest thing you ever heard. As I'm reading it, and I'm obviously very, very familiar with your work, and we've been friends for a number of years now, many years now, and I can't look away. I'm going to say this is the craziest story ever. And so I strongly encourage everyone to go pre order this book the Zizians by Andy Ngo, that we can't say anything else about until you announce more of it in the near future.

[B]

Thank you. Well, I'll say a little bit more. The book is about a phenomenon that I'm sure many of your viewers and listeners have observed over the last five years, is that there's an element of surging trans violence in America. And I focus on particular one cult in the United States that most people have not heard of, a trans death cult that have been linked to eight deaths. And they were able to use leftist grievance ideology and leftist politics to allegedly commit killing after killing over the years and get away with it because they were doing it in jurisdictions where those in power did not feel comfortable going strongly after a group of people who identified as trans.

[A]

It's an unbelievable hook. The book is phenomenal and everybody needs to go pre order it. But we'll talk more about that when it actually comes out and when you announce it. In the meantime, Andy, thank you very much for being here. Where can everybody follow you?

[B]

My substack is ngocomment.com and I am on X at mrandyngo.

[A]

It's never occurred to me how you precisely spell your last name. It's the only NGO I like. Just about the only NGO I like is the Andy one. Andy, good to see you.

[B]

Thank you. My pleasure.

[A]

That's our show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show. See you tomor.

[B]

Sam.