Digital Forensic Research Lab reports:

Supporters of far-right extremist movements in the United States applauded the Taliban after the group’s takeover of Afghanistan, cheering the development as an existential defeat of Western powers they believe are responsible for perceived declines in society. Some went so far as to frame the US defeat in the nation as a goal for their own movements to aspire toward.

Extremists’ reactions to the Taliban’s domination of Afghanistan fits into three distinct buckets: support for major pillars of the group’s driving ideology, sympathy for its struggles to maintain access to mainstream social media platforms, and allegations that events in Afghanistan are meant to conceal or distract from other nefarious government activities.

The Taliban and US far-right extremists are aligned on some but not all aspects of their political agenda, including the downgrading of women in the social order, hostility toward LGBTQ people, opposition to abortion, and support for a fundamentalist religious government. Both view the social progress of Western societies as the driver of cultural and political collapse and seek to foment deep resentment against the private and government entities and figures they believe to be responsible for that collapse. For these extremist movements, opposition to the structures of Western society can form the basis of ideological solidarity and make for what can seem like unlikely bedfellows. [Continue reading…]