Articles about far right groups’ creepy admiration for the Taliban have become sort of a cottage industry in recent weeks. It’s a worthy point unto itself, but I also think that discussion has been a bit reductive and tends to reinforce the (occasionally reasonable but often very misleading) impression that any one flavor of “extremism” is more or less equivalent to any other. At any rate, hopefully this is a useful contribution to that conversation.

https://truthout.org/articles/could-the-taliban-takeover-become-a-wedge-issue-for-the-far-right/

The good people at EuropeNow have just published an essay I wrote. It’s about the August 29, 2020 attack on the Bundestag, but also about the ideological background that created the conditions for the events of that day. Above all, that means the Reichsbürger (“citizen(s) of the Reich”) movement, QAnon supporters, and COVID-19 deniers. All three are motivated by arcane conspiracy theories and all three have grown rapidly in recent years. The events in Berlin last August not only presaged what would happen a few months later at the US Capitol, but also made clear just how dangerous these conspiracy theorists are.

In the aftermath of the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 criminal investigations have left some national organizations like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia network largely hamstrung. As many on the left are all too well aware, it can be very difficult for a movement…

On February 12, the head of French far right organization Génération Identitaire received notice from France’s interior minister Gérald Darmanin that the group would be officially dissolved in two weeks’ time. The impending ban was prompted by a recent demonstration on the French-Spanish border, which Darmanin argues constituted the formation…