U.S. Right-Wing Extremists See Taliban As A Role Model

The Taliban is not a nice organization. They took over in Afghanistan through violence and terrorism, and will rule it in an autocratic manner (as they did in the past). But the right-wing extremists in the United States don't see them that way. They see them as a role model for how to take over a country -- and they'd like to use Taliban methods to take over the United States (and establish an authoritarian government).

The following is part of an op-ed at MSNBC.com by Cynthia Miller-Idriss:

Now, admiration for the Taliban has spread to a handful of pro-Trump conservatives and to former President Donald Trump himself, who praised the group as “smart” and “good fighters.” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., described the Taliban as “more legitimate” than the Biden administration, while Donald Trump Jr. tweeted support for the Taliban’s critique of big tech censorship.

In many ways, the far right’s admiration of Islamist extremism is nothing new. Far-right extremists have long seen parallels with Islamist terrorists’ ideas about a clash of civilizations and rejection of the liberal West, multiculturalism, feminism and LGBTQ and minority rights. Islamist and white supremacist terrorists express similar apocalyptic visions and parallel desires for a territorial caliphate and a white ethnostate. They deploy the same kinds of violent terrorist strategies — from the swift execution of enemies to the embrace of martyrdom — to accelerate the process toward the end times. . . .

Actual efforts to collaborate across far-right and Islamist scenes are thankfully rare. Hardcore white supremacist extremist groups and channels regularly share Islamic State group and Al Qaeda propaganda, including attack manual instructions, bomb-making information and violent ISIS imagery. But historically, Islamist terrorists have been less interested in supporting the efforts of the extreme right, who they tend to view as part of the broader Western enemy.

There are now some indications this is changing. New researchtracing online interactions between Salafi-jihadi and white supremacist groups showed that cross-ideological discussions on Telegram channels align around issues like both movements’ shared hatred of Jews. Such alliances are nascent and potentially superficial — but nonetheless concerning.

If there’s one thing we have learned from the past few years of extremist mobilization, it is that strange coalitions are possible in ways that heighten the risk of spontaneous and planned violence. At the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, anti-maskers, QAnon conspiracy theorists and ordinary Trump supporters joined forces with more militant white supremacists and anti-government extremists around a shared goal of preventing the U.S. presidential election vote count from taking place. . . .

Such crossover ideologies and odd coalitions are likely to grow in the coming years, fueled by the very nature of online extremist radicalization. Unlike in the past, when extremist content was distributed primarily by groups with relatively clear ideologies and goals, today’s encounters with extremism are less coherent and more patchwork in nature — reflective of the pick-and-choose process of radicalization that happens as individuals encounter bits of extremist ideologies online.

We should expect extremist threats to continue to evolve and morph into new forms in the years to come. Far-right extremists will simultaneously praise the Taliban and promote anti-refugee backlash. They will seek alliances with others — even supposed opponents — who they see as sharing goals around restoring tradition, countering modernity and protecting heritage. They may mobilize around perceived shared enemies, including Jews, feminists and multiculturalism itself.

To outsiders, cross-ideological expressions of support and praise may seem contradictory. But while we can’t fully predict the ways that extremist movements will reinforce and feed off one another in the years to come, we should at least anticipate it.