State Lawmaker Exposed as Creator of The Red Pill Faces Expulsion

It has not been a good week for Robert Fisher. The New Hampshire State Representative was called before a House committee Tuesday in Concord, New Hampshire, following a Daily Beast investigation that exposed him as the creator of the infamous men’s rights reddit community The Red Pill.

In an extensively researched report, the Daily Beast’s Bonnie Bacarisse traced Fisher’s various online aliases across multiple blogs and social media over several years, eventually linking him to the username Pk_atheist, the self-professed creator of The Red Pill.

The forum takes its name from a scene in The Matrix where Neo is offered a red pill in order to experience a true reality, or a blue pill in order to return to a state of complacency in a false world.

The online community has become the virtual hub for the men’s rights movement. The Red Pill, as a community, is largely frequented by users trading pick-up lines in several current posts, and other users, who, based on their comments, can be best summed up as rape apologists. It’s a popular community: Some 200,000 users share misogynistic viewpoints and experiences related to their shared mantra that feminism is waging a war on men. Its mission statement is to offer a place for “discussion of sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men.”

Mapped out in the Daily Beast’s report is a record of Fisher’s personal online misogyny. He continually discusses his viewpoint that women have a sub-par intelligence to men, and refers to women’s bodies as their most redeemable feature.

It gets much, much worse. According to the report, Fisher also made multiple comments insinuating he is a rape-apologist. In 2008, on another forum administrated by Fisher under the alias FredFredrickson, he also said:

I’m going to say it- Rape isn’t an absolute bad, because the rapist I think probably likes it a lot. I think he’d say it’s quite good, really.

When originally contacted by the Daily Beast by phone, Fisher denied participation in the forum, claiming to not even know what it was. By Tuesday, his tune had changed, as a House state committee was charged with interrogating him about his involvement in The Red Pill. According to Concord Monitor, Fisher admitted to posting under the name Pk_atheist but denied using the alias “redpillschool,” a username which still moderates The Red Pill and has been linked to Fisher’s email address.

During the hearing, he also chalked up his past misogynistic comments to a “bad breakup.”

“Several years ago I made some injudicious statements regarding women and my frustrations with dating,” he said. “Some of the views that have been alleged here are certainly not reflective of what I stand for and what I have done in my time here in Concord.”

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu told WMUR Wednesday that Fisher has got to go, in so many words: “Representative Fisher’s comments are horrendous and repulsive and his resignation is certainly in order,” he said in a statement.

Fisher has yet to formally apologize for his involvement in The Red Pill. In a public statement sent to WMUR, Fisher essentially attempted to gaslight Bacarisse’s reporting, saying the quotes in the story were taken out of context:

Of course rape is a horrible crime. That was an out-of-context quote from a nearly decade-old debate about the failings of moral relativism. This kind of journalistic malpractice does a disservice not only to me, but to the women and men who are victimized, by perpetuating a false notion that the government doesn’t care what happens to them. This discourages them from coming forward, which emboldens perpetrators to harm others.

The House committee has until next week to decide who the real victim is and make a recommendation about Fisher’s resignation. The state House will then vote on the recommendation June 1.