Red Pill Politics

A smart and accessible dissection of twenty-first-century fascist politics, providing general readers with the tools to understand, and defeat, today’s resurgent far right

Around the globe, far-right political parties and movements are on the march, winning popular support, legislative seats, and presidencies—and stoking widespread fears of the revival of fascism. What to make of this terrifying drift?

In this timely, deeply researched, and deftly argued examination of far-right politics today, the political scientist David Ost shows that to grasp the very real threat of resurgent fascism, we must look beyond the extreme examples of Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy lest we miss the growing strength—and the distinctly populist appeal—of today’s far right. Instead, drawing on a wide range of compelling contemporary and historical examples, Ost shows that we must understand the current global movement as part of a new political category, which he calls “Red Pill Politics” in reference to the right-wing meme which purports to peel back the facade of liberal hegemony. While Red Pill Politics exhibits many features of classical fascism—racial exclusion, xenophobic fearmongering, enforcement of rigid gender roles—contemporary far-right parties have won power not through violence and mass repression, but through anti-elite, populist rhetoric and elections.

For readers of Jason Stanley’s How Fascism Works, Red Pill Politics draws on meticulous historical research and analysis of contemporary far-right politics to help us understand and fight one of today’s most pressing political threats.