In 2012, Robert ran as a Democrat for the New Hampshire House of Representatives, but was unsuccessful.[1] In 2014, he ran for the House of Representatives again, this time as a Republican. He won the 2014 election, and was re-elected in 2016.[1]
As a representative, he served on no committees by his own request.[2]
After the discovery that he founded and moderated the controversial subredditr/TheRedPill, Fisher resigned from political office on May 17, 2017.[3]
r/TheRedPill controversy
In 2017, The Daily Beast reported that Fisher was the founder and a moderator, under the alias pk_atheist, of the subreddit "/r/TheRedPill", known for its misogynistic content.[4] According to Daily Beast, Fisher used several pseudonyms, including "redpillschool" and "Morpheus Manfred", which was used for several media interviews on behalf of the forum.[3][5][6]
Speaking to WMUR, Fisher admitted to writing at least some of the material attributed to him, which he characterized as "some injudicious things about the opposite sex following a bad breakup",[7] including, from a 2008 post:
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. ... . I think rape is bad, I'm not arguing for it. I'm arguing against the idea of an absolute truth.[7]
Fisher also told WMUR:
That was an out-of-context quote from a nearly decade-old debate about the failings of moral relativism."[7]
Following bipartisan comments calling for him to resign from his state House of Representatives seat, Fisher stated in April that he did not plan to do so.[8]
On May 17, a Republican-led House committee voted 8-6 along party lines to recommend no disciplinary action against Fisher. Less than an hour later, while an investigation for perjury was getting started, Fisher resigned under social and political pressure.[9] House Minority Leader Steve Shurtleff had called for a perjury investigation by the state attorney general's office, but said that Fisher's resignation made this no longer necessary.[10]
