To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right

Journalist Mathias’s urgent, eye-opening debut delves into antifa’s extralegal efforts to dox white nationalists. A “decentralized... network of militant leftists,” antifa is typically depicted as a bunch of extremist agitators or an elaborate fairy tale. But the very real organization’s primary, underreported work, Mathis explains, is “naming and shaming” pseudonymous members of groups like Identity Evropa or Bowl Patrol (creepily named after mass shooter Dylann Roof’s “bowl cut hairstyle”). While placing antifa in a lineage of lefties who, in past eras, unmasked KKK members and got into street fights with skinheads, Mathias mostly focuses on the present, documenting the group’s investigative tactics, from online sleuthing to perilous undercover operations. The latter accounts for the book’s most gripping segments, as Mathias follows antifa spy Vincent during five months he spent embedded in Patriot Front, formerly Vanguard America (renamed to obscure its connection to the 2017 Unite the Right rally). Appointed his chapter’s “official photographer and videographer,” Vincent surreptitiously surveilled the group and downloaded a whopping 440 gigabytes of their data. While Vincent’s infiltration is told with thrillerish tension, Mathias also highlights the mostly “obsessive” and “tedious” work behind doxing, which culminates in the exposure of white nationalists “in real positions of power,” including high school teachers, members of the military, and a State Department official. It’s a by turns heart-pounding and heartening glimpse of the fight against fascism in the shadows. (Feb.)