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 combatted (Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi…) 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 ‘anti-fascism’ now also make their appearance in the (currently) less violent setting of the US presidential primaries.

The portrayal of Trump as not just a worse racist and nationalist than his opponents, but a ‘fascist’, allows the likes of Hillary Clinton to pose as a high-minded defender of ‘decency in public life’ and ‘democratic values’. To put it kindly, these terms would not likely be associated with her dynastic candidacy, if she could not transplant #ReadyforHillary onto the contest of ‘status quo vs. barbarism’. Dylan Riley has aptly referred to this as the ‘hysterical lesser-evilism implicit’ in calling the Republican frontrunner a fascist – a call for maximum unity behind the Democratic nominee, on whatever platform. It is a programme for demobilisation, turning movements for social change into conservative get-out-the-vote operations.

Of course, it is easy to see why this could work. Media are already predicting a very high turnout of Black, female and young voters in November, to stop Trump. And quite rightly. If Clinton is the Democratic candidate, she will, indeed, be the lesser of two evils. Her rule would do less to galvanise racist cops, and probably also mean less economic chaos, than would Trump’s. Her supporters will not beat up Black people at her rallies. But what is obnoxious is the use of these facts to demand ‘message discipline’ in advance; as if Sanders’ candidacy itself, or even the mere discussion of Clinton’s terrible record on race, active role in the Middle East collapse or shameless service of the super-rich is somehow ‘letting the side down’ when all ‘progressive’ forces must be devoted to bashing Trump. Out with Black Lives Matter and the movement against the 1%; in with the defence of corporate liberalism. Such is Clinton’s cynical ‘anti-fascism’.

Indeed, although almost all polls suggest Bernie Sanders would actually do better than Hillary in a head-to-head with the Donald, lesser-evil ‘anti-fascism’ is near-exclusively invoked as a call to rally behind the former Secretary of State. Sure, she isn’t what you wanted – the argument goes – but you have no choice, because only her impeccable ‘moderation’ can win over centre-Right voters – and the alternative is ‘fascism’. Something of a parallel dynamic is happening even among Republicans, as party grandees seeking a more ‘establishment’ candidate now rally behind Ted Cruz – the single figure closest to Trump’s misogyny and racism, and with a divine mission to boot – in order to steal some of the frontrunner’s hard-Right clothes.

Hence ‘lesser evilism’ drags the whole political spectrum toward the lesser evil – or rather, helps make the second-worst evil pose as your anti-fascist friend. Even as his Republican competitors profess their outrage at Trump’s demagoguery, all of them have been pulled right during the campaign, with Cruz even imitating the demand to build ‘The Wall’ across the Mexican border. And so, too, would Clinton invariably tack to the centre or centre-Right if she were the Democratic nominee, anti-Trumpism providing her the perfect excuse to roll back all previous concessions made to the Sanders movement. A corrupt establishment insider and leader of the ‘war on Terror’ (the proponent of what would have been a disastrous attack on Syria) thus comes to stand for decency and caution.

Ironically, it is Trump’s areas of similarity with classical fascism that most demonstrate the dangers of such establishment lesser-evilism. Firstly, because the coronation of an élite figure like Hillary feeds the far-Right’s claim to represent the sole ‘anti-establishment’ voice, for want of any candidate giving a ‘Left-populist’ alternative to working-class and left-behind rural Americans. Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the current campaign is Trump’s particular success agitating among poor whites, with around 10 percent of Sanders’ supporters threatening to vote for the billionaire over Clinton. Secondly, because tacking right to meet the ‘fascist’ danger effectively means more poverty, more attacks on racial minorities, and, more violence both at home and abroad.

Indeed, history hardly demonstrates that ‘established’ bourgeois élites are an ally for the Left against far-Right populism, even in its overtly ‘fascist’ form. The German Social-Democrats voted for the conservative nationalist Paul von Hindenburg to stop Adolf Hitler in 1932, withdrawing their own candidacy while using their police powers to repress Communists; Hindenburg won, and then appointed Hitler chancellor just one year later. Benito Mussolini denounced the entire political élite, boisterously vaunting ‘the theory of action, not words’; sure that they could contain him within establishment ranks, it was the Liberals who voted his first government into office, inaugurating a twenty-year régime.

‘Fascism’ is not coming to America, and it remains highly probable that Clinton will win the presidency come November. But a very real danger exists of something like the current French situation developing: the far Right becoming the sole anti-establishment force, hoovering up working-class support from the Left, while liberal élites club together in defence of republican legality. The establishment adopts ever harsher anti-immigrant measures to quell the populist storm; street racism is fuelled; and the far Right increasingly claims a monopoly of dissent. All that can result is a toxic mix of precarity and violence; a rising far-Right populism fed by the cynical ‘anti-fascism’ of the élites.