Hillary Clinton did the country a disservice last week when she said the words "alt-right" in a highly publicized speech. Many who had never heard the term wanted to learn more about this relatively small group of online racists who have, mostly unintentionally, been given an elevated platform due to Donald Trump’s campaign. Clinton could have easily talked about overlaps between the Trump phenomenon and white supremacists without using the term or naming specific figures or Twitter handles, but she chose to go deep.

Alt-right trolls themselves were giddy, even thanking Clinton for putting them on the map in a big way.

The overwhelming majority of Trump supporters — including the Republican nominee himself — have no idea what alt-right is. White supremacist or "nationalist" at its core, alt-righters adore the GOP presidential candidate for his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, and love that Trump’s base of support is primarily white.

But most conservatives aren’t racist — even some who might wander in that vicinity without being conscious of it still aren’t neo-Nazis — and yet they still have valid concerns about illegal immigration and radical Islamic terrorism.

Some conservatives have asked me and others who have written about the "alt-right," what it actually is or means, particularly after Hillary’s speech. When I tell them that it’s a bonafide racist movement, many have a hard time believing that.

And I can’t blame them.

For years, liberal politicians and pundits have called virtually all conservatives and even average milquetoast Republicans "racist."

They called John McCain racist in 2008. They called Mitt Romney racist in 2012. They called John Boehner racist. They called Paul Ryan racist. Some have argued that Ryan is a white supremacist. Seriously.

To read leftist and Democrat-friendly media, you would think the tea party movement a few years ago was the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan as a potent force in our politics. It was ridiculous.

So what do we now call an actual Klansman?

Current alt-right darling David Duke’s name was mentioned in Clinton’s speech, a racist retread who’s been around for decades and is now enjoying another moment in the sun thanks to a "new" movement that obviously isn’t that new.

Duke’s name is known enough that most can see that he’s obviously bad. But what do we call the online trolls with swastika and Hitler icons who essentially agree with Duke? What do we call the genuine white supremacists who compare black comedian Leslie Jones to an ape or anti-Semites who target Jewish people online?

Racist? The KKK? Just like the tea party and Paul Ryan!

It’s difficult. The left has helped render useless the necessary language to describe genuine racists.

At the tea party’s height — and during a period where the movement received broad popular support for its fiscally conservative goals — it focused primarily on the themes of less spending and smaller government. In criticizing the tea party (a movement I helped write a book about with my former boss, Senator Rand Paul), liberals would typically focus on one nutty outlier or controversy to tarnish the entire agenda and its grassroots supporters.

Now, how do we effectively describe a current movement in which the overwhelming majority of its members are animated by white separatism and resentment of racial minorities?

I don’t know.

I do know that my fellow conservatives and libertarians need to recognize the alt-right for what it actually is, and separate its racial collectivism from the basic individualist-based, constitutionalist beliefs most on the right share.

But it’s hard. I’ve never been part of the partisan echo chamber where I believe the left is wrong about everything and the right has all the answers. Far from it. I’ve even argued that the right does have hateful tendencies and needs to become more welcoming of gay and black Americans and other minority groups.

Yet by calling everyone on the right racist, the left has made it harder than ever to now identify and condemn the real thing.

For many, if everything is racist, then nothing is. Even when it is.

Hunter is politics editor for Rare.us. He co-authored Senator Rand Paul’s 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington.