Terrorist groups embrace chance of weakened US hegemony under Trump

While Donald Trump has cultivated his reputation as a feared strongman, internal chats and online talk across a spectrum of terrorist organizations calling the US government their enemy show that many see advantages to the president-elect’s incoming administration.

Key to those beliefs are Trump’s own promises that once in office, he plans to reduce the global US military footprint and purge the so-called “deep state” national security agencies of workers he considers disloyal to him.

Part of the Trump transformation, some believe, will also include further alignment with Russia and ending the war in Ukraine to the advantage of the Kremlin and weakening US hegemony globally.

On Rocket.Chat, the chosen encrypted communications platform for the Islamic State (IS) and its followers, users in a covert chatroom for the terror group immediately discussed the results of the election.

“Real, he said he will stop the war in Ukraine [in] 24 hours,” said another.

Of course, IS has a sordid history with Trump: he proudly announced the killing of its infamous leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019 and spurred major military operations on its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

Lucas Webber, a research fellow and a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, said he had been monitoring online IS chatter since Trump’s victory to glean their reactions. He says the terror group was actively “crafting its rhetoric and strategy to capitalize on and exploit trends”, which includes global reactions to the Trump v Kamala Harris election.

“Since the election, some [IS] supporter discussions have weighed the pros and cons of a Trump administration foreign policy approach,” said Webber, “with a segment of followers suggesting that a peace deal with Ukraine would strengthen Russia and greater support for Israel would be worse for Palestine.”

While the tenor of the Trump talk acknowledged he was “worse” for IS than a hypothetical Harris administration, many shrugged him off.

“It’s not going to have that much of a big effect on us in my opinion,” said one IS poster, before pointing out that the incoming president will ally himself with their other sworn enemy, Russia. “When [IS] comes back, not Trump and neither his friend Putin will be able to do anything about it.”

IS has always believed Vladimir Putin’s total war in Ukraine has weakened his country and offered the group softer targets inside of Russia. Earlier this year, in March, an Afghan branch of IS attacked a Moscow theater and killed 145 people.

In contrast, if the US abandons another ally, as it did in Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul in 2021, IS sees the flirtations with Russia as more signs of American decline and the power vacuum it offers.

“Him and his buddy [Elon Musk] who have turned [X, formerly Twitter] into a backdoor for Russia to manipulate the foolish American people,” said one IS operative in the chat.

Some stateside terrorists believe the resurrection of Trump as president is yet another opportunity to recruit and grow their far-right movements, unencumbered by a more liberal and unfriendly administration.

“Looks like Trump won,” said a Telegram post from an account connected to former members of the designated neo-Nazi terrorist group Atomwaffen Division, which for a time had international cells but is now defunct. “On the good note, seems [that] both Project 2025 and Elon Musk himself want to cut the federal workforce by insane amounts. This includes the FBI and DHS.”

Trump and Musk have stated their determination to slash federal workers under a “government efficiency commission”, which could result in a mass exodus of agents in the FBI, DHS or even the CIA – all among the nation’s most important national security agencies tracking terrorists and bad actors intent on US attacks.

The Telegram post continued: “While in actuality slashing the federal bureaucracy to a minimum and filling the roles with newbie loyalists is retarded from a system power point of view. We’re happy with it.”

Throughout the Biden administration, Republican lawmakers allied themselves with Trump and denounced the arrests of January 6 attackers, accusing the FBI of maligning “conservative” employees and purging Maga supporters from its ranks.

Congressman Jim Jordan led the charge, using his seat on the House judiciary committee to attack his Democratic counterparts for what he portrayed as a witch hunt in the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

Some extremists, on the other hand, are openly applauding the potential relief from police pressures that a Trump-led FBI might offer.

“In addition to strongly supporting proposed mass deportations, some extreme right groups are hoping that likely cuts to federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies and changing priorities will mean that attention will no longer be focused on them,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a terrorism analyst at the Counter Extremism Project.

“They are anticipating having breathing room and some are hopeful about the future.”

One Telegram post from within the far-right ecosystem of that app, spoke for the imprisoned white nationalist leader Rob Rundo and his support for the election of Trump.

“He may not be the cure for all our issues at hand,” said the post claiming to speak for Rundo, “but it could be the difference between freedom and incarceration for many young nationalists.”

Meanwhile, the Blood Tribe, a violent American neo-Nazi group that has shown up armed to drag events, thinks a newly minted Trump administration may target them as an offering to placate the mainstream.

“Expect federal interference in the operations of our groups to become more prioritized,” said one of the group’s ex-marine leaders in a Telegram post.