A member of the Mises Caucus of the Libertarian Party, he has written about 19th-century British secularism and is a critic of the contemporary social justice movement.

[6] On September 12, 2016, Rectenwald created the anonymous Twitter account @antipcnyuprof, tweeting on the topic of social justice ideology on North American colleges and universities.

At the time, he described his politics as “left-communist.”[7] In a November 3, 2016 Washington Post op-ed, Rectenwald claimed that two days after the student interview, he was summoned by NYU Liberal Studies Dean Fred Schwarzbach and was "strongly encouraged to take a paid leave of absence.

[13] According to a review in Victorian Studies, "Rectenwald thus offers a revisionist interpretation that, rather than understanding Holyoake's leadership of the free thought movement as a failed rhetorical attempt to make society more secular, sees it as marking a distinct moment in modernity.

"[14] In 2018, the conservative New English Review Press published Rectenwald's memoir, Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage.