“The hostility has always been there, but it’s definitely escalated because of the presidential election,” said Jason Ross, the 20-year-old chair of the college Republicans at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. In September, vandals crossed out the word “Republicans” on posters advertising the Bridgewater College Republicans and scrawled “RACISTS!!!” underneath.

Inspired in part by the Black Lives Matter movement, younger liberal activists on college campuses are increasingly willing to call out and denounce racism wherever they believe it exists. The push is presumably guided by the belief that doing so is both morally justified and a way to highlight pervasive discrimination and deeply-rooted inequality. And at least some liberal students seem to believe that anyone who supports Trump is racist and deserves to be labeled that way.

There’s no question that Trump’s political rise has emboldened white nationalists. Of course, racism is not always as obvious and in your face as a television spot advertising David Duke’s run for a Louisiana Senate seat. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from March to April found that Trump supporters were more likely than Clinton supporters to describe black people as less “intelligent,” and more “lazy,” “rude,” violent” and “criminal” than white people, though individuals who expressed those views did not make up a majority of Trump voters.

College Republicans supporting Trump bristle at the way charges of racism have been so broadly applied, arguing that the label doesn’t apply to them. “When I hear comments like his supporters are racist, or they hate immigrants, I look at myself and say, ‘Well, am I racist? Do I hate immigrants?,’ and the answer has to be no, and it is no,” said Natalie Callahan, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Utah and chair of the Utah Federation of College Republicans. She added that she has not personally been accused of any of those things, but believes Trump supporters have generally been disparaged by liberals over the course of the election.

In the eyes of younger Trump voters, reflexively characterizing supporters of the Republican nominee as racist, is not only unfair, it’s counterproductive. “In every political party there will always be a few members who are racist, but they don’t represent our party, and they’re not welcome in our party,” Ross said. “I find it appalling how frequently the term is being thrown around. A racist is a terrible, terrible person, and if you use that word to describe everyone and everything, it quickly loses its meaning.”

At Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, Zachary Bartman, the 20-year-old chair of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans, says terms like “racist” and “sexist” are used so frequently against Trump supporters that it’s become something of a joke even among his liberal friends. “A lot of my friends, who I know are voting for Hillary, will kind of just joke around with me and say I’m a bigot, a racist, or a xenophobe because I support Trump,” Bartman said. “I think it’s just a weak way of expressing a political opinion,” but he added: “It happens so often that, at this point, I don’t even care anymore.”