For [Steve] Bannon and his allies, purging extremist elements from the far-right movement is hard, because no matter how vocally they repudiate neo-Nazis and their brethren, those groups will hug back harder—especially if there’s a national platform for them to clamber on. “David Duke shows up for every media opportunity,” Bannon complained to Rose, referring to the former K.K.K. grand wizard. One person who met with Bannon recently described him as furious and preoccupied with the Nazi problem. “What the fuck do we do about the Nazis?” he asked at one point during their meeting, according to this person.

Complicating the issue are the rank-and-file Web-based Breitbart constituency that Bannon calls the “Pepes,” after the cartoon frog often used in memes promoting far-right ideology. It has not always been clear where the group’s mischief-making ends and anti-Semitism begins: the “Pepes” themselves gleefully Photoshop their foes into gas chambers, not because they actually believe in white supremacism, some say, but because they simply wanted to see the liberal Internet lose their minds. The Pepes’ outrageous stunts are responsibly in part for fueling the rise of Breitbart, and to an extent, Trumpism, but their refusal to stop tweaking progressives with their use of swastikas has now become a liability.