It has been almost a month since journalist Andy Ngo was beaten and put in the hospital by a group of masked Antifa thugs. Today the Daily Signal published an interview with Ngo in which he describes some of the reasons he is critical of the group beyond their propensity for violence.

So my coverage of Antifa has been critical, not just critical of the hooliganism and the street violence because violence of course is easy to condemn. I am critical of the underlying ideology as well. My parents lived through a Marxists revolution, Antifa’s agitating for revolution in this country, and my mother was just a teenager when she and her entire family, including very young siblings, were sent to labor camp. My father was sent to re-education camp, so that history and trauma that my parents continue to carry with them is part of my story and I don’t have the luxury of viewing radical Marxist ideologies with the same rose-colored glasses as my peers do in Portland.

This makes complete sense as a reason for Ngo to be a lot less sanguine about Antifa than many other people his age. Through his parent’s experience, he’s seen a bit of the glorious revolution from the other side of the fence.

Earlier today, Allahpundit wrote about the Newsweek piece which basically argued that Antifa can’t be that bad because they have a body count of zero. That’s true but it’s nothing to brag about. Ngo was hospitalized with a brain bleed. Last year a Democrat holding an American flag was hit in the head with a club of some kind and left bleeding on the street.

Video shows a struggle for a flag and then a black-clad person hit this dude in the head before he drops. I was watching the blood pour out of his head and into the street. #DefendPDX #AllOutPDX pic.twitter.com/KPRk1D8l00 — Mike Bivins (@itsmikebivins) August 4, 2018

Then, of course, there was the guy left bleeding all over the street after he was hit over the head with a bike lock. His Antifa attacker, Eric Clanton, got 3-years probation. Finally, let’s not forget the two Marines who were severely beaten by a larger group of Antifa members who mistook them for Proud Boys. Not to mention the armed assault on an ICE detention facility that took place just over a week ago.

Ngo expressed some frustration with national reporters, including a couple of knuckleheads at CNN, who have repeatedly defended Antifa because they don’t seem aware of what the group actually stands for:

I think, from a distance, you can watch the videos of the street hooliganism and find it almost comical to be there, to have it directed at yourself and to be familiar with what they’re actually agitating for. It is a scary and dangerous ideology movement. And I think the mainstream media base all the way in D.C. or in New York City are just unaware and they just think that these are noble antifascists who are fighting Nazis on the streets. That’s not what’s happening… When I look at, watch the videos over and over of what happened to me and see the pictures, it’s very humiliating. But at the same time, I’ve been forcing myself to continue to do all of these media engagements because I want the public to see the brutality of this movement and to recognize that they’ve been buying into a false narrative of this being a noble anti-fascist group of people. It’s not, they can be very indiscriminate in their violence, they believe they’re part of a vanguard that will overthrow the government. This is a very extreme ideology and I’m not sure if people like Chris Cuomo or Don Lemon at CNN know this when they basically act as apologists for Antifa.

To his credit, Jake Tapper has criticized Antifa’s targeting of reporters but he’s outnumbered by Antifa-defenders at his own network. It’s outrageous that a group this violent and extreme has so many media defenders but not exactly surprising when you look at the ideological leanings of most reporters.