To brand someone a fascist is to invite a rarely rewarding debate over definitions. Indeed, if even Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler had no common theory for what they were doing, it is puzzling to hear the category “fascism” extended to Ba’athism, ISIS, or, indeed, the rise of Donald Trump’s white nationalist movement.

Not only are these examples not all united by classically fascist themes of national rebirth, economic corporatism, or armed expansionism, but nor are these themes the sole preserve of fascists. We never seem to discuss it, but even good-old British liberalism had its millions of dead and its concentration camps. But in media-political discourse the use of “fascist” normally means little but a bully who doesn’t respect the rules. And its use often tells us more about the person making the accusation than the intended target.

After all, the invocation of fascism is a long-established call to arms — a demand for unity against the outside threat. An inflated story of Churchill’s refusal to appease Nazism still today justifies many an imperial exploit, with the numbers of modern-day Hitlers who must be combated (Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi  . . . ) seemingly ever-increasing despite our efforts to bomb their subjects into submission. Never mind what we’re trying to achieve — the Nazis are coming. And appeals to antifascism now also make their appearance in the (currently) less violent setting of the US presidential primaries.