What will the alt-right do? Their leader is dead.

Well, the symbol of their Nationalist pride is dead. As dead as a cartoon character can be, anyway.

Pepe the frog has been killed off by his creator, Matt Furie.

Pepe has been around since 2005, but alt-right nightmares from the 4chan boards began to use him as the official mascot for their movement, even working in Nazi symbols with the character.

It’s rather unfortunate, actually.

What started out as an innocuous MySpace blog character was hijacked to mean something obnoxious and hateful.

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League designated Pepe as a hate symbol, horrifying its creator.

“It’s a nightmare, and the only thing I can do is see this as an opportunity to speak out against hate,” Furie told Time magazine.

I remember there was quite a bit of debate about whether Pepe should be deemed a symbol of hate, simply because he’d been hijacked.

Sadly, I think you have to. I can’t recall ever seeing the character without something ugly or hateful going on in the image.

So raise a glass to Pepe. May he find the peace in “death” that the alt-right wouldn’t allow him to have in “life.”