Meryl Streep, in a fiery speech criticizing President Trump on Saturday night, pledged to stand up against “brownshirts and bots” at a time when she and others are increasingly denouncing his administration’s policies and the president himself.

Ms. Streep, in New York City accepting an award from the Human Rights Campaign, referred to the backlash she received after the Golden Globes in January, when she gave a speech denouncing Mr. Trump.

“It’s terrifying to put the target on your forehead, and it sets you up for all sorts of attacks and armies of brownshirts and bots and worse, and the only way you can do it is to feel you have to,” Ms. Streep said. “You have to. You don’t have an option. You have to.”

It was not immediately clear to whom Ms. Streep was referring in using the loaded term “brownshirts,” which was originally applied to a paramilitary group that assisted the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.