Donald Trump hasn’t even taken office yet, but the racist alt-right movement that has latched onto him is already showing signs that it’s falling apart. 
 
 The loosely knit group was shocked to the core Saturday night when one of its most influential leaders -- a man known to his online followers as "Mike Enoch," a virulent racist and anti-Semite -- was revealed to be a New York website developer named Mike Peinovich, who has said that his wife is Jewish. 
 
 Enoch/Peinovich is the creator of the popular neo-Nazi website The Right Stuff (TRS). For several years, he has also co-hosted a podcast called “The Daily Shoah,” a deliberately offensive pun on the Hebrew term for the Holocaust. 
 
 In his online persona, Peinovich routinely cracked jokes about killing Jewish people and forcibly deporting Muslims and people of African descent. The weekly program had roughly 100,000 regular listeners, many of whom regularly sent in financial donations by PayPal or bought merchandise from the site. 
 
 Peinovich's wife appears to have been aware of the entire situation. She even appeared on "The Daily Shoah" several times, including a special holiday-season segment in 2015 where she read a neo-Nazi parody of "The Night Before Christmas." Introducing the clip, which can be found online, Peinovich said his wife was "very proud of it." 
 
 Peinovich’s doxxing --- a term referring to revealing someone’s private information online --- was largely the work of anonymous left-wing users on the Medium blog site, in a post that has since been deleted. Word spread like wildfire throughout the alt-right’s many web forums and message boards over the weekend, as TRS fans and detractors battled over whether the information was legitimate or not. 
 
 That initial report had an air of credibility, since the identities of Peinovich’s fellow “death panelists” on the podcast had been revealed earlier in the week. That doxxing was done by anti-fascist activists who call themselves "antifas" and also members of a rival far right website called 8chan, who attacked TRS for supporting the principle that non-Jewish white nationalists had common interests with extreme right-wing Israelis, which is anathema to hardcore neo-Nazis and anti-Semites. 
 
 The first of Peinovich’s colleagues who was doxxed was a University of Nebraska philosophy student who called himself “Ghoul." His information was leaked out by antifas; 8channers subsequently revealed that his mother was revealed to be married to another woman. 
 
 After that, 8channers and and antifas doxxed the rest of the “Daily Shoah” crew. “Bulbasaur” was exposed as a corrections officer living in Tennessee and “Seventh Son” was revealed as a guitarist in a New York-based rock band. 
 
 The big prize for the doxxers, however, was Peinovich. As the creator of TRS, he was (at least until this weekend) regarded as one of the three most influential figures in the alt-right, alongside Daily Stormer creator Andrew Anglin and Richard Spencer, the co-creator of the "alt-right" label. 
 
 Though TRS has not received as much coverage in the mainstream press, it originated or popularized many alt-right pranks and memes, including the practice of identifying Jewish people or those suspected of being Jewish with (((triple sets of parentheses))), bogus White Student Union schemes at educational institutions, and racist or anti-Semitic song parodies. Peinovich has also claimed he was the first person to give a Nazi salute at the infamous National Policy Institute conference after Trump's election in November. 
 
 Peinovich’s downfall was set in motion in December when a former alt-right vlogger named Mike Cernovich hinted to his viewers that one of his rivals “is morbidly obese and is married to a Jewish woman.” He declined to say who he meant, but that salacious rumor set the cyber-sleuths to their task. 
 
 As the doxxing unfolded this weekend, Peinovich said nothing on Twitter or on his own site. Contacted via email by Salon, he denied being Mike Enoch but admitted to having been involved with TRS. 
 
 “I was involved with that site years ago, writing a few libertarian articles for them and using my PayPal for the exactly zero donations that the site ever got when it was still a libertarian blog,” he wrote. 
 
 Peinovich then claimed he had disassociated himself from TRS after it became overtly pro-Nazi: “I cut off ties when they went the direction they are going now, and that was 4 years ago. Honestly I have not thought much about them. As you can see from all public writings I am libertarian. My wife is Jewish. Do you really believe that I am this person?” 
 
 The TRS creator then asked Salon to help him deny that he was Enoch: “If you give any fucks at all then you could print that this is all bullshit. We are now being harassed not only by communists but by actual neo nazis.” 
 
 When asked if he would be willing to conduct a telephone interview, Peinovich replied, “Let me talk to my wife.” He never answered back. 
 
 As the evidence continued to mount linking him to the Enoch identity, Peinovich decided to fess up to his devoted Nazi fans in a post for TRS’ password-protected forums, part of which read: 
 
 As I am sure you all know, I was doxxed and an ill advised attempt to fool the media about my identity led me to not talk to you people and to try to simply ride it out by being silent. This was irresponsible and a disservice to all of you. Yes my wife is who they say she is, I won't even bother denying it, I won't bother making excuses. If this makes you want to leave the movement, or to have nothing to do with TRS, then I understand. Don't lie for me. Don't try to defend me to those attacking me. Don't jeopardize your own reputation by defending things that you don't think you can. I could try to explain my whole life for the last ten years to you but what difference at this point would it make. Life isn't perfect. 
 
 The admission sent a shock wave throughout the alt-right. The reactions began pouring in. Some listeners of “The Daily Shoah” were crestfallen. Here's just one example of the anguish: 
 
 TDS was my favorite podcast and one of the best parts of my week. Enoch's rants were both enlightening and triggering, but now I cannot listen to them the same way again. It just feels like they're just more actors in the same play being orchestrated by the Jews. Half of my gut has also thought TRS has been controlled opposition for awhile now. Although I will continue to listen to the Shoah I just don't know if I will be able to take Enoch as seriously as I used to. It's pretty bad for your WN, fourth reich, neo-nazi, facist movement when one of the head guys happens to be married to a Jew. 
 
 Within a few more hours, Peinovich’s partners announced that he was resigning from TRS entirely. 
 
 The 8channers, who pride themselves on their refusal to adopt pseudonyms (all site users post under the handle “Anonymous”) and reject the "alt-right" label in favor of "national socialist," were ecstatic. 
 
 “(((TRS))) is over. Period,” gloated one of them. 
 
 Many began improvising some of the Holocaust memes that have been lobbed at Jewish journalists, instead featuring Peinovich and his wife. Both were depicted in gas chambers before the night was done. 
 
 Another hoped the entire alt-right movement would just disappear: “After the shitstorm is over the alt-right won’t be important enough to warrant a [discussion] thread,” he wrote. “In my opinion, they never did.” 
 
 With Peinovich gone and many TRS readers mistrustful of the “death panelists” who helped him cover up his secret, the site’s future is an open question. Its unique blend of pop-culture references and hardcore neo-Nazism will be hard to replace. By around 3:30 on Sunday morning, at least some 8channers had begun to feel a sense of regret. 
 
 "I'm going to bed but I want everyone involved with this doxxing to think about contributing something to replace TRS rather than pissing on its grave and saying that they did the right thing,” wrote one of them. “So far you have fucked up royally.” 
 
 This article has been updated to reflect the fact that anti-fascist activists were the first to expose Ghoul, not 8chan posters. 
 
 Matthew Sheffield A writer, web developer, and former tv producer, Matthew Sheffield covers politics, media, and technology for Salon. You can email him via MORE FROM Matthew Sheffield A writer, web developer, and former tv producer, Matthew Sheffield covers politics, media, and technology for Salon. You can email him via m.sheffield@salon.com or follow him on Twitter 
 
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 in your inbox every day Sign up for our free newsletter • • • ||||| An ‘antifascist investigation team’ claimed to unmask Mike Peinovich as the ringleader of the Right Stuff website, a hub for the far-right movement 
 
 Antifascist activists claim to have “doxxed”, or umasked, the leading “alt-right” writer and podcaster Mike Enoch as part of a string of such actions that have convulsed the far-right movement. 
 
 Enoch has appeared at conferences hosted by Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute, including one in Washington in November that culminated in Roman salutes and widely reported shouts of “hail Trump”. 
 
 On Saturday, a group that called itself counter-counter signal and said it was “a small antifascist investigation team in the New York area” issued a statement and a Medium post detailing its claim that the ringleader of the Right Stuff website, hitherto known as Enoch, was in fact Mike Peinovich, a former tech worker who lives on New York’s Upper East Side. 
 
 ‘A sense that white identity is under attack’: making sense of the alt-right Read more 
 
 Peinovich’s Gmail address, they said, had been attached to a PayPal account associated with the site in 2013. 
 
 The Medium post – since removed by the company in a “rules investigation” – revealed Peinovich’s address, telephone number and the identity of his wife. 
 
 Counter-counter signal claimed his wife had also contributed to a high-profile podcast hosted by Enoch, the Daily Shoah, the name of which is a pun on the Hebrew word for the Holocaust. 
 
 In heated discussion in far-right forums and on social media, most concern seemed to center on the fact that Peinovich’s wife was identified as having a Jewish background. 
 
 Contacted via email, Peinovich denied he was Enoch and said he would “try to get my Google search results cleared up”. 
 
 Asked about the association of his email address with the PayPal account, he wrote: “Well, see if you can think of any ways in which a guy’s email address could be on a website four years ago and he is not the guy in charge of the site today.” 
 
 No other figures have said Peinovich is not Enoch, however, and in a widely shared screenshot from the Right Stuff’s private forum, Enoch appears to admit to the doxxing, writing “Yes my wife is who they say she is” and “I am just a guy who puts ideas out there on the internet.” 
 
 Asked about the screenshot, Peinovich wrote: “No idea really about any of that. Sorry.” 
 
 On Monday, Spencer said on Twitter: “I respect, like, and admire Mike Enoch. He will continue to be a force on the Alt Right in the future.” 
 
 The same day, Peinovich’s podcast partners said he had quit the Right Stuff. 
 
 
 
 The Right Stuff serves as a hub for the far right and publishes podcasts including The Daily Shoah and Fash the Nation. The site claims tens of thousands of listeners. Before it was banned from Soundcloud last October, Fash the Nation was the No1 conservative podcast on the platform. 
 
 The Right Stuff has been instrumental in evolving the distinctive lexicon of the far right, notably originating the “echoes” meme in which Jewish names are enclosed in three closed parentheses. This was listed as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League last year. 
 
 In its Medium post, counter-countersignal accused the Right Stuff of taking “alt-right politics to their logical conclusion, including favorable references to the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, gaybashing, Islamophobic hate crimes, police shootings of black youth, and much more”. 
 
 The group justified the doxxing by claiming the website was “central to a hard-core, explicitly neo-Nazi tendency in the alt-right movement”. 
 
 Antifascist sources said the investigation had proceeded with online intelligence, supplemented with offline checking of Enoch’s address and his wife’s identity. Counter-countersignal said that there was “no hacking or illegal activity involved”. 
 
 'Alt-right' groups will 'revolt' if Trump shuns white supremacy, leaders say Read more 
 
 In an email, the group provided its reasons for targeting Enoch. 
 
 “[The Right Stuff] posts podcasts and articles advocating for the murder of people of color, queers, leftists, and a new holocaust against Jews on a daily basis,” the email read. “For the most part they would not be saying this stuff if they had any accountability from their neighbors, friends, and family.” 
 
 Writers and podcasters at the Right Stuff usually operate under pseudonyms. In recent weeks, other doxxings have led some far-right figures to go into hiding. 
 
 A Scottish YouTube star known as Millennial Woes, who appeared at the National Policy Institute, has reportedly left the country after attracting mainstream media interest. Other figures associated with the Right Stuff have been driven off the internet. Some have been the victim of former allies on the far right. ||||| Published on Dec 29, 2016 
 
 "In his online persona, Peinovich routinely cracked jokes about killing Jewish people and forcibly deporting Muslims and people of African descent. The weekly program had roughly 100,000 regular listeners, many of whom regularly sent in financial donations by PayPal or bought merchandise from the site" -- 
 
 
 
 http://www.salon.com/2017/01/16/cat-f... 
 
 
 
 ---------------------- 
 
 Cernovich vs "Baked Alaska" Part 6: The Same Person Calling Me Kikeovich is Married to a Jew 
 
 (formerly The Gulag) 
 
 Mike Cernovich Live on Periscope 12-29-2016. Part 6 of the Cernovich vs. Baked Alaska saga. 
 
 - Alt-Right Fight Night Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... 
 
 - Cernovich Periscope Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... 
 
 - Reuters Article on the drama: http://news.trust.org/item/2016122920... 
 
 - Mike's blog post about it: https://www.dangerandplay.com/anthime... ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Over the weekend, unnamed leftists leaked the true identity of Mike Enoch, the pseudonymous neo-Nazi talking head behind white supremacist blog TheRightStuf.biz and co-host of its Daily Shoah podcast, on the self-publishing platform Medium. 
 
 According to the Medium post, which has since been taken down for rules violations — but is still archived online — Enoch is actually Mike Peinovich. 
 
 Peinovich lives in New York City's ritzy Upper East Side neighborhood, has a "lucrative tech job" and a "liberal family, rooted in the affluent suburb of Montclair, New Jersey." Unlike notorious white nationalist spokespersons like Richard B. Spencer of the National Policy Institute or Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin, the Medium post noted that Peinovich concealed his true identity to enjoy the trappings of his liberal city lifestyle. 
 
 As news of his true identity spread, Peinovich — whose Right Stuff site popularized (((echoes))), a technique for targeting Jews online, which Mic reported on back in June — was forced to admit to fans his true identity — and that his wife is Jewish. 
 
 According to Salon, after initially denying the report Peinovich took to the Right Stuff's password-protected forum to write, "As I am sure you all know, I was doxxed and an ill-advised attempt to fool the media about my identity led me to not talk to you people and to try to simply ride it out by being silent." 
 
 He added, "Yes my wife is who they say she is, I won't even bother denying it, I won't bother making excuses." 
 
 Other denizens of the forum saw yet another Jewish conspiracy afoot. 
 
 "It just feels like they're just more actors in the same play being orchestrated by the Jews," one user responded. "Half of my gut has also thought TRS has been controlled opposition for awhile now." 
 
 On the web communities 4chan and 8chan, both of which run far-right political forums, users responded to Peinovich's unmasking with a combination of mockery, anger and anguish. One thread asked, "Why is the Alt Right full of pathetic untermenschen?" — a reference to the German word used by Nazis to describe inferior races. Another poster suggested, "He did it to setup an online community that required people to divulge all of their personal information in order to join." 
 
 According to Salon, Peinovich's wife appeared to be aware of her husband's online identity — and even made several appearances on the podcasts. In one, according to Salon, "she read a neo-Nazi parody of The Night Before Christmas. Introducing the clip — which is also archived online — Peinovich said his wife was 'very proud of it.'" 
 
 Peinovich has since resigned, and the Right Stuff may be on the verge of collapsing entirely. The Medium post noted other members affiliated with the network were outed recently, including "Cooper 'Ghoul' Ward (also a member of the American Vanguard, another group trying its hand at a public presence), Van 'Bulbasaur' Bryant II, and Jesse 'Seventh Son' Dunstan." Ward and Bryant have since dropped off the web. 
 
 Peinovich's Daily Shoah, a play on a Hebrew term for the Holocaust, is a major player in far-right politics which claims to have roughly 100,000 subscribers. And Peinovich has attended neo-Nazi and white supremacist conferences like Spencer's NPI under his Enoch pseudonym. 
 
 Peinovich was also one of the most prominent organizers of the alt-right, the loosely affiliated online network of white nationalist and far-right activists who sprung to prominence amid Republican President-elect Donald Trump's campaign. His venture, the TRS network, appeared to be generating at least some revenue as well through merchandising and various fundraising ventures. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
– The founder of a neo-Nazi blog and major figure in the alt-right movement has resigned after he was revealed to have a Jewish wife. A post published on Medium over the weekend claimed Mike Enoch of The Right Stuff—whose Daily Shoah podcast has 100,000 subscribers—is actually Mike Peinovich, a New York City web developer with a "liberal family" and a Jewish wife. Peinovich, who often discussed killing Jewish people, denied the report to Salon before confirming it on the TRS forum. He then resigned. As several others involved in TRS were outed recently, Mic reports its future is now unclear, though National Policy Institute head Richard Spencer says Peinovich "will continue to be a force on the alt-right in the future," per the Guardian. The revelation came less than a month after a former alt-right vlogger described a major alt-right player as "married to a Jewish woman," without naming names. Peinovich's wife appeared on the Daily Shoah podcast numerous times. In one 2015 episode, she read a neo-Nazi parody of The Night Before Christmas of which she was "very proud," Peinovich said at the time. If her Jewish heritage "makes you want to leave the movement, or to have nothing to do with TRS, then I understand," Peinovich wrote on the TRS forum this week. The response from the movement was less than understanding, with one user suggesting the pair were "actors in the same play being orchestrated by the Jews," while other memes showed Peinovich and his wife in gas chambers.