I've mentioned this before, but it remains prescient. When GamerGate was really going and their standard tactics (e.g., ban us, call us nazis, tell everyone we were just the fringe and real people actually supported them not us, etc) were failing, one thing they tried to get us to do as a very blatant op was "declare a leader."
Ethan Ralph. They wanted us to pick fucking Ethan Ralph as the "leader of GamerGate."
The idea was blatantly obvious. We'd pick a "leader," they'd make him an inflection point, and shatter the movement over his gunt, based on if you hated/loved/couldn't care less about the gunt. A bit of trolls to get the two sides in fighting, and GamerGate would be no more.
They tried the same thing with EVS and ComicsGate. They successfully split SadPuppies into two groups to dilute their influence to nothing. I'd argue Ann Coulter's entire career was being an artificial wedge personality so they could break what passed for the far right over her jaw a few decades ago. I've heard people say they did the same thing with the Tea Party and the Libertarian party, and the UK does it with say, Tommy Robinson.
That's why Fuentes and Owens are being pushed out on stage by people suddenly platforming them when a year ago if you said anything to the right of Stalin you were blacklisted from all media outlets. Put the movement on Fuentes or Owens' backs, then break it in half based on if you support or don't support them, and then you can ignore the now balkanized movement.