Steve Bannon and Breitbart pull support from Paul Ryan challenger after his antisemitic and racist opinions come to light.

Paul Nehlen

Courtesy of the SCMP:  

Paul Nehlen, the far-right activist who is challenging House speaker Paul Ryan for his congressional seat, has lost the support of Breitbart News and Steve Bannon.

A source close to Bannon, the former White House chief strategist who is orchestrating a slate of challengers to Republican establishment figures, said Nehlen became persona non grata after he appeared on a white supremacist podcast, Fash the Nation, earlier this month. 

Bannon had never been particularly enthusiastic about Nehlen despite the wealth of coverage on Breitbart, the source said. 

Nehlen is a businessman and so-called “mini-Trump” who was backed by leading right-wing figures including Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter in the 2016 primary for Ryan’s Wisconsin congressional seat. The speaker’s eventual margin of victory was huge – 84 per cent to 16 per cent – despite aggressive pro-Nehlen coverage from Breitbart.

In recent weeks Nehlen has attracted criticism for controversial tweets on immigration and other subjects. On Tuesday, for example, he tweeted that he was reading The Culture of Critique, a book by Kevin MacDonald, which is seen as anti-Semitic. 

On Twitter on Tuesday night, Breitbart senior editor Joel Pollak said: “We don’t support him. Haven’t covered him in months ... He’s gone off the deep end.” 

Arthur Schwartz, a Bannon adviser, told CNN: “Nehlen is dead to us.”

For his part Nehlen is now saying the "globalists" from both sides are working together to undermine his campaign,  because you know in his circle hating on the Jews and being a probable white supremacist is not seen as a deal breaker.

And to be fair it is unlikely that Breitbart would have abandoned him either if they were not currently trying to reinvent themselves and move away from their racist roots.

Just for fun here is Sarah Palin on CNN in 2016 saying she will do "all she can" for Paul Nehlen.

Boy that sure worked out well, didn't it?