For a few hours on Wednesday, the conservative Internet—or at least the part that loved Donald Trump, specifically—spun in confused circles over a section of Michael Wolff’s bombshell new book regarding the first days of his administration. In Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, an early copy of which was obtained by The Guardian, Wolff reported that Steve Bannon, the brazen chairman of Breitbart News and former Trump campaign C.E.O., had bashed Trump’s son, Don Jr., saying that he was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” for taking a meeting with a Russian lawyer, and—horror of horrors—speculating that Trump himself knew of the collusion.

This, of course, had to be fake news coming from left-wing M.S.M. “shills,” wrote Shadowman3001, the moderator of the pro-Trump reddit r/The_Donald. “[Bannon] helped Trump get elected possibly more than anyone. Have some faith,” he initially posted. When journalists began circulating a nuclear press release from Trump himself, which declared that Bannon had “lost his mind” and was “in it for himself,” Shadowman3001 remained skeptical. “It hasn’t been posted to the official [White House] page,” he protested. But as soon as Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared at the podium to confirm the statement, erasing all doubt as to Trump’s sentiments, Shadowman3001 immediately crossed out all his previous statements and declared: “Looks like we have a new enemy.” (He later deleted his comments altogether.)

Trump, it seemed, had given his marching orders, and his base followed. Subsequent anti-Bannon sentiment began bubbling in the Internet cesspools where Trumpism began, like the comments section of right-wing sites such r/The_Donald and Breitbart.com itself, to the glee of the Internet. “I voted for Trump[,] I didn’t vote for Bannon,” said the highest-rated comment on the site, pegged to a straightforward news article writing up Trump’s statement. “I’ll stick with Trump, thanks.” Others vented that Bannon had been responsible for pushing Roy Moore, an anti-gay candidate and therefore the least Breitbartian candidate possible. (“That right there should show you how big a fool Bannon turned out to be.”) Even their Twitter account’s attempt at meta-humor—retweeting a Mother Jones reporter covering the backlash—resulted in readers calling Bannon a “traitor” and promising a boycott.

The response to the Wolff book in the provinces of the right amounted to a referendum on Bannon’s hubristic campaign for domination. In the squabbling world of the populist-nationalist movement—Bannon’s associates (many of whom hate him), Bannon’s industry peers (who loathe him), and even those who were merely Trump supporters and watched Bannon from afar—there was a surprising sense of unity. “The idea that Steve Bannon is the great manipulator behind the scenes who really has the plan and the worldview is completely bullshit. Trump said exactly what I’ve been saying for months,” Ben Shapiro, Breitbart’s former editor-at-large and harsh Trump critic, vented to me. “It’ll change people’s views because Trump said it. It’s equally right when anyone says it, but Trump saying it just makes it more powerful and more clear to any of his supporters.”

As for whether the base would stand by Bannon, who had appointed himself Trump’s “wingman” outside the White House and vowed to keep him informed about the populist mood, an editor at a competing conservative news site predicted otherwise. “Bannon was just hit by a MOAB,” said the editor. “The base will stick with the guy who gave the order.” (Bannon’s representative did not return repeated requests for comment.)