“White supremacy” seems to be everywhere these days.

Fashionable left wing writers for websites like the Atlantic and Salon publish semi-coherent screeds on the centrality of white supremacy across American society. When conservative commentator Ben Shapiro arrived to give a speech at Berkeley last week, he was greeted with signs that accused him (an orthodox Jew) of “white supremacy.” An ESPN reporter recently tweeted out that President Trump is himself a white supremacist. Under topic “white supremacy” on the Huffington Post, many of the photos that pop up are of Donald Trump.

{mosads}None of this is a coincidence. The recent shift to use “white supremacy” as a catchall term for anything out of favor on the left is a blatant partisan ploy. The progressive commentariat is abandoning the widely understood meaning of white supremacy and repurposing it to placate their angry, anti-Trump base. They are also creating associations between anything Republican or conservative and white supremacy.

This is defamation by redefinition, and its intention is to frighten and punish opposing voices.

#BREAKING: White House demands ESPN fire host who called Trump a “white supremacist” https://t.co/jz8OpGlzBK pic.twitter.com/Y0n9rXDnOz

— The Hill (@thehill) September 13, 2017

Democrat desperation also plays a role here. The old slogans of slander rooted in identity politics don’t have the same punch anymore. After decades of being told that everything on the right is racist, that this country is soaked in “institutional racism,” “structural racism” and “subconscious racism,” many Americans have become numb to such allegations.

Likewise, many are sick of the condescending, nonsense term “white privilege,” which is generally cited by college-educated white liberals to affirm their own moral superiority over the conservative other. They need a new way to play the “race card,” and allegations of white supremacy will have to suffice.

It’s not a subtle change. Until recently, the term “white supremacist” conjured up images of hateful skinheads marching in combat boots and violent Neo-Nazis with swastika tattoos on their faces. Now, the left uses white supremacy to describe college admissions processes, enforcing immigration laws, and defending property from looters during a hurricane.  One might ask, if your run-of-the-mill college admissions officer is guilty of  “white supremacy,” how do we refer to the activities of the Aryan Nation prison gang?

UC Berkeley faculty call for university to shut down during “free speech” event with Bannon and Yiannopoulos https://t.co/vaMghkoFUV pic.twitter.com/7ym0ZppB3Y

— The Hill (@thehill) September 18, 2017

But the illogic of the left’s current position on this is irrelevant to them. The point of the switch in terminology is not to illuminate, but to bully. Democrats aren’t throwing around the term white supremacy to describe a new phenomenon in American politics or society, they’re popularizing a slur that they know will be used mostly to malign the Trump administration, anyone associated with it and anyone who supports it.

This is also part of a clear pattern in which the left uses wildly dishonest language to describe president Trump. One can’t help but notice the progression over the last nine months — running the gamut from Trump is a fascist, to a traitor, and now a white supremacist. That such irresponsible accusations have been echoed and amplified by the mainstream press has only proven to honest observers that this amounts to political foul play.

We have a long tradition of calling any president an incompetent and a fool in this country. But calling this president a “white supremacist” is much more rooted in pathology than political analysis.

Control the words, and you can control the debate. This is why the Associated Press now refuses to use the term “undocumented” or “illegal immigrant,” and the New York Times will bend the knee to use plural pronouns for a single person.

Driven by the hysteria of the Democrat revulsion against Trump and the Republican party, the left has expanded the definition of white supremacy beyond recognition in order to weaponize it. All that matters is that the deeply negative connotation remains, that Trump and his supporters are tarred with it, and that a cheap pejorative is now at hand for any member of the so-called “resistance.”

Downgrading “white supremacy” to a petty term of disparagement is not something we should take lightly. If it is allowed to continue unchallenged, it will poison serious policy debates and entrench even deeper animosity against the Trump administration from radicals on the left, including the so-called “antifa,” who believe that violence is justified to oppose the administration.

The left understands the depth of irrational hatred for this president, and are exploiting it. Their shameful, destructive approach to political discourse may result in more than just harsh words and derailed agendas.

Buck Sexton is a political commentator, national security analyst and host of the nationally syndicated radio program, “Buck Sexton with America Now.” He is a former CIA officer in the Counterterrorism Center, appears frequently on Fox News Channel and CNN and has been a guest radio show host for Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Follow Buck on Twitter @BuckSexton.