Prior to this weekend, I was unaware of Andy Ngo, a Portland-based writer for the intentionally tedious right-wing journal Quillette. The journal is perhaps most memorably described by Mike Stuchbery as “a finishing school for crypto-fascist bores.”
But Ngo has managed to earn even left-wing sympathy for injuries apparently received during a rally on Saturday by Antifa-allied groups in Portland, as reported this weekend by every surface of the right-wing echo chamber reflecting the story, such as The Daily Caller
The story has earned Ngo far more than sympathy. For his head injury and loss of a GoPro camera, a GoFundMe page has pulled in a cool $150,000 dollars and counting, not for medical expenses but rather, as the page specifies, so that “every cent goes directly to Andy”.
Who could have predicted this kind of windfall might result from his involvement with the Antifa rally? Mr. Ngo might have predicted it himself.
Ngo’s March 30, 2019 opinion piece on nypost.com was specifically about hoax attacks being rewarded with GoFundMe campaigns. Of course, the alleged hoaxers being identified by Ngo in that piece were LGBT activists and community members, and the piece implied that their reported attacks were meant to generate hysteria and contributions.
The premonition of an assault on Ngo is right on his Twitter feed on Friday, the day before the rally.
I am nervous about tomorrow’s Portland antifa rally. They’re promising “physical confrontation” & have singled me out to be assaulted.
A week earlier, he tweeted a warning that
while milkshakes sound benign, remember that antifa escalates to using deadly weapons like sticks, bats, bricks, rocks, fireworks, brass knuckles, batons, and more.
Mr. Ngo’s dedication to his work, in the face of threats clearly foreseen by him, seems remarkable.
Luckily, within hours, maybe even just minutes, of him sustaining injuries, prominent conservative Michelle Malkin had set up the GoFundMe page. This enabled the good Antifa-hating public to donate over a hundred fifty thousand dollars to cover the costs of Ngo’s facial lacerations, inpatient hospital observation, and missing GoPro.
Fortuitously, an Oregonian reporter caught some of the scuffle on video, and the GoFundMe page provided some “exclusive” video showing the attack. One person dressed in black apparently approaches Ngo in a way that knocks a camera or some object out of his hands, another touches his face, and a third sprays what looks like silly string. Some milkshakes are tossed as he walks away. No video appears to shows if there was any provocation, or even give a clue why the rally attendees would notice or care that Mr. Ngo was walking with them.
This would not be the first time Andy Ngo was in a position to profit from his propaganda work. Last year’s GQ story “The Free Speech Grifters” used Ngo as an exemplar of “free-speech” activists who highlight leftist protests as a way to elicit money from sympathetic right-wing media consumers. His Patreon page plays up his dedication to covering “protests, free expression, and Islam”.
It is entirely possible that Mr. Ngo’s attendance at the rally was not made with expectations of an assault, despite his own tweet that he anticipated an assault. The rapid GoFundMe campaign may have been conceived of after the assault, even though such fundraising is a theme in his earlier writing. And the masked assailants shown in the video may genuinely be Antifa sympathizers who were unprovoked and merely happened to recognize Ngo and decide he was a threat.
But it’s hard not to wonder if this wasn't reflective of a long game interested more in money than in anyone's free speech or safety.
Additional details on the protest and on Mr. Ngo are in annieli’s post.
