Perhaps the book’s title is appropriate to their agenda.
By Nathan J. Robinson, J.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Current Affairs
The book Unhumans, by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec, is a fascist manifesto. It argues that the “Great Men of History” should take their cues from homicidal dictators like Augusto Pinochet and Francisco Franco, reject reason and democracy, and ruthlessly annihilate the gangs of communist “unhumans” who are currently threatening to destroy the United States. It explicitly advocates “eye for an eye” justice, promising a new McCarthyism complete with blacklists, along with the immediate banning of all teachers’ unions. It is perhaps the most paranoid, hateful, and terrifying book I have ever picked up. (I say this as someone who has read Mein Kampf.) And it comes with a warm and supportive blurb from Ohio senator J.D. Vance, who is currently the Republican party’s vice presidential nominee.
Vance had this to say of Unhumans:
In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags. Today, they march through HR [Human Resources], college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people. In Unhumans, Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back.
Vance, then, has endorsed without qualification both the analysis and the plan laid out in Unhumans, saying it’s what needs to be done to “fight back.” Several other figures in Donald Trump’s orbit have also praised the book. It comes with additional blurbs from Donald Trump Jr. (who says it shows the “playbook” needed to “save the West”), Michael Flynn (“[Unhumans] offers a fifth-generation warfare system to fight back and win”), Tucker Carlson (“Jack Posobiec sees the big picture”) and Steve Bannon, who wrote the foreword. (“Study this book. Share this book.”) Trump himself has probably not read it, since it is a book, but he has previously boosted co-author Jack Posobiec on Twitter.
Posobiec himself is a far-right activist who is possibly an outright neo-Nazi, but, at the very least, both antisemitic and demonstrably fascist. The text of Unhumans, as we will see, leaves little room for dispute on the latter point. He is known for spreading political falsehoods (such as the Pizzagate nonsense, which caused the employees of a D.C. pizza place to be relentlessly terrorized by unhinged strangers from the internet). He engages in quixotic acts of political disruption, such as making a scene during Shakespeare In The Park, calling for a boycott of Star Wars, and planting a “Rape Melania” sign among anti-Trump protesters to discredit them. He has worked for Turning Point USA, OANN, and Human Events, as well as Citizens for Trump, “the largest Trump grassroots organization in the US.” Co-author Joshua Lisec is less infamous, being a professional ghostwriter who has worked with Dilbert creator Scott Adams as well as various influencer and life coach types.
Unhumans is both a manifesto and a guide for action. Its central argument, which I will state as dispassionately as possible, is that leftists are not fellow human beings who should be accepted as part of a pluralistic society, but rather “unhumans” bent on destroying the civilized order. Citing the usual parade of 20th century communist dictators (Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot), Posobiec and Lisec argue that even if it may not look like the contemporary United States is under threat from a communist revolution, we are under threat, besieged by furtive, scheming unhumans who must be rooted out before they can consummate their fiendish plot to commit mass murder. Stopping the unhumans will require shedding commitments to democracy, free speech, reasoned debate, and tolerance of alternate points of view. Instead, they argue, the right should find its role models in Caesar, Joseph McCarthy, and various murderous anti-communist dictators of the 20th century.
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