The Public Eye, Spring/Summer 2021

This issue threads together various right-wing movements that began on the internet and have had, at time, devastating effects on our everyday lives. As this issue was going to print, a young Ohio man was charged with a federal hate crime for plotting to carry out a mass shooting of women. As M. Kelly writes, the Ohio man was quickly identified as a member of the largest online forum for the misogynist incel, or “involuntary celibate” movement.

Mariel Cooksey investigates how young women and girls are being drawn into another online anti-feminist movement: tradwifery. Just as young men have been recruited into far-right politics by edgy meme culture and red pill rhetoric, “trad girls” are crafting their own wing of the movement, one like at a time.  

Damon Berry writes about the enduring appeal of QAnon and how it taps into religious feeling, and ancient apocalyptic narratives of horror and hope, where visions of atrocities only serve to enhance the promise of a glorious new world to come.

This issue also introduces readers to three news books. An exclusive excerpt from Victoria Law's new book Prisons Make Us Safer, looks at mass incarceration in the U.S and how to tackle this problem. Shane Burley reviews the recent anthology Global White Nationalism: From Apartheid to Trump, considering how, in the years after World War II, a new transnational fascist movement emerged, united by demographic panic about the end of a “pure” White race. And Deyanira Marte speaks with David Neiwert about his new book Red Pill, Blue Pill, a sharply-perceived guide through the origins and implications of the growing world of right-wing conspiracy theories.