
The campaign to silence those who question progressive ideas about race and privilege requires frequent rebranding. Labels such as “far-right” and “alt-right,” which once might have served to strip a person of his or her livelihood and personal reputation, have become such common terms of abuse that they’ve effectively become meaningless. The words “white nationalist” once were used to describe someone who actually supported the creation of a white ethnostate. But now, activists are claiming that the mere act of making an “okay” hand gesture could mark you as a “white power” extremist—or at least someone who is “alt-right-adjacent.” The goal of this perversion of language is to drive up the number of people who may be classified out of hand as extremists, and thereby disqualify even the mildest forms of dissent as de facto hate speech.