Red Scare (podcast)
Red Scare is an American cultural commentary and humor podcast founded in March 2018 and hosted by Dasha Nekrasova and Anna Khachiyan.
The show was initially associated with the dirtbag left but is now associated with the new right and support for Donald Trump, as well as the subculture surrounding Dimes Square.
Content
Red Scare bills itself as a cultural commentary podcast hosted by self-described "bohemian layabouts" Dasha Nekrasova and Anna Khachiyan, and is recorded from their homes in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Nekrasova is a Belarus-born actress, who became known as "Sailor Socialism" after an interview with an InfoWars reporter went viral in 2018. She immigrated to Las Vegas, Nevada, with her acrobat parents when she was four. Khachiyan is a Moscow-born writer, art critic and daughter of Armenian mathematician Leonid Khachiyan. She was raised in New Jersey. The two women met on Twitter, and started the podcast in March 2018 after Nekrasova relocated to New York City from Los Angeles.Early episodes were produced by Meg Murnane, who also appeared as the show's third co-host. She made her last appearance on the show in October 2018, and episodes have been self-produced since then. On an episode released on December 5, 2018, Nekrasova and Khachiyan announced that they had parted ways with Murnane "amicably and mutually."
The show covers current topics in American culture and politics and is a critique of neoliberalism and feminism in a manner both comedic and serious in tone. The hosts are influenced by the work of Mark Fisher, Slavoj Žižek, Camille Paglia, Michel Houellebecq and Christopher Lasch. Recurring topics include Russiagate, the #MeToo movement, woke consumerism and call-out culture.
Writers, artists, social commentators and cultural figures from across the political spectrum have appeared on Red Scare, including Elizabeth Bruenig, Angela Nagle, Elena Velez, Tulsi Gabbard, Glenn Greenwald, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Slavoj Žižek, Adam Curtis, Steve Sailer, Alex Jones, Curtis Yarvin, Nick Fuentes, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Ivy Wolk and Bryan Johnson. Nekrasova and Khachiyan have hosted several episodes of the show live, most notably broadcasting on NPR at The Green Space at WNYC and WQXR, as well as interviewing social media influencer Caroline Calloway at the Bell House in Brooklyn, and John Waters as part of NPCC fest. Khachiyan has been interviewed by Bret Easton Ellis and Eric Weinstein on their respective podcasts.
Format and availability
An episode of Red Scare is typically between 50 and 90 minutes long. The show's theme song is "All the Things She Said", the 2002 single by Russian pop duo t.A.T.u. Free episodes of the show are available via podcast hosting services such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribers who contribute at least $5 per month via Patreon gain access to additional premium bonus episodes. As of October 2025, the show generated over $44,000 per month.Episode guide
As of,, episodes of Red Scare have been released. The show's most frequent guest is photographer Dan Allegretto at nine appearances, followed by Amber A'Lee Frost of Chapo Trap House at seven appearances, and writer Patrik Sandberg and Glenn Greenwald at five appearances each.Reception and cultural impact
The hosts have been called "provocateurs", with a New York Times op-ed describing Red Scare in 2022 as a "louche hipster podcast" with no "coherent worldview" aside from a "contempt for social liberalism and a desire to épater la bourgeoisie ". Initially associated with the dirtbag left and support for Bernie Sanders, after 2020 the podcast has been aligned with right-wing politics, and supported Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election. The hosts became disillusioned with both the political establishment and millennial leftist figures for ostensibly prioritizing identity politics over class. The American Mind identified the 2020 George Floyd protests as a turning point in which the podcast shifted from "left-critical" reference points like Christopher Lasch and Glenn Greenwald towards right-wing figures such as Bronze Age Pervert, Curtis Yarvin and "race realist" Steve Sailer. In 2025, Nekrasova described Red Scare as influencing a "reactionary sentiment amongst Manhattanites", within a wider move towards Trump in 2024, and Khachiyan said: "We've always loved, even when we had to be down-low brothers about it." Nekrasova, a practicing Catholic who has expressed sedevacantist views, has been credited for trending Catholicism in certain demographics of millennials and Gen Z. Critics have accused Red Scare of being overly ironic and amoral, and of breeding cynicism and nihilism.In 2018, Red Scare was described in The Cut as "a critique of feminism, and capitalism, from deep inside the culture they've spawned." The hosts' critique of feminism has been influenced by Camille Paglia, and they have often quoted lines from her books, such as "if civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts" and "there is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper". The podcast makes frequent use of the word "retard", and has been described as trying to re-popularize the slur. In 2022, conservative filmmaker Amanda Milius described Red Scare
In 2022, Khachiyan met with billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel and U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters. Masters, until then president of the Thiel Foundation, called Red Scare "interesting", and hinted to Vanity Fair that it could receive funding from Thiel in the future. Nekrasova and Khachiyan denied receiving any funding from Thiel.
The podcast generated controversy for hosting white nationalist commentator Nick Fuentes in October 2025. Fuentes, who is known for his sexist and antisemitic rhetoric, made offensive remarks about ethnic and religious groups during the interview, with Nekrasova telling Fuentes that she was "such a fan, honestly". Nekrasova was subsequently dropped by the talent agency Gersh, and was also fired from her role in the upcoming film Iconoclast.
Popular culture
Between 2019 and 2022, Audrey Gelman, Lena Dunham, Chloë Sevigny, Cazzie David, Leah McSweeney, Jonah Hill, Rachel Comey and Elizabeth Olsen mentioned listening to the show in interviews. Gelman's husband, Genius co-founder Ilan Zechory, was a co-host on Red Scare Roundup, a podcast that recapped episodes of the show from May to November 2018.In 2021, Sydney Sweeney confirmed that Red Scare was the inspiration for the characters she and Brittany O'Grady played in the HBO satirical drama series The White Lotus, created by Mike White. White instructed Sweeney to listen to the podcast and base her performance on the hosts' specific vocal intonations. The Charli XCX song "Mean Girls", on her 2024 album Brat, was inspired by Nekrasova, with the singer telling Rolling Stone: “I wouldn’t say I’m deeply invested in edgelord culture, but have I scanned the texts? Sure.” In the pilot episode of the FX show English Teacher, Brian Jordan Alvarez's ex-boyfriend describes himself as "basically a conservative at this point," before saying "I don't even know what I am anymore. I listen to Red Scare."