Some who claim to be conservatives have coined a new label for us: "alt-right."
To the uninformed, this term - short for "alternative right" - might sound trendy in an uncommon election year like this one.
But make no mistake, "alt-right" is a euphemism for white supremacy and all the attendant bigotry it implies.
Think of Breitbart.com, one of the top exporters of this attitude, as the expert on all things alt-right.
"There are many things that separate the alternative right from old-school racist skinheads (to whom they are often idiotically compared), but one thing stands out above all else: intelligence. Skinheads, by and large, are low-information, low-IQ thugs driven by the thrill of violence and tribal hatred. The alternative right are a much smarter group of people - which perhaps suggests why the Left hates them so much. They're dangerously bright," reads a March 29, 2016, Breitbart.com article titled "An establishment conservative's guide to the alt-right."
The article continues (with a Donald Trump ad alongside): "National Review attacked them as bitter members of the white working-class who worship 'father-Führer' Donald Trump. Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast attacked Rush Limbaugh for sympathizing with the 'white supremacist alt-right.' BuzzFeed begrudgingly acknowledged that the movement has a 'great feel for how the internet works,' while simultaneously accusing them of targeting 'blacks, Jews, women, Latinos and Muslims.' The amount of column inches generated by the alt-right is a testament to their cultural punch."
In reality, all the too-cute-by-half talk about the labeling gives this new-age KKK more credit than it deserves.
Alt-right is to racism what ethnic cleansing is to genocide - one and the same, just dressed-up-politically correct-like-words in a nice suit and tie.
Americans are better than this. Republicans and conservatives are better than this - at least that's what we've believed until Donald Trump - a devotee of Breitbart and white nationalism - strode onto the scene to claim that courting diversity, peace and humanity was being a bad, bad version of "politically correct" and he wasn't interested in political correctness.
"Build a wall," he shouted, to keep out the "rapists" and "criminals" Mexico "sends" us. "Punch 'em" he instructed his audience when black protesters raised their signs and voices. He called women "pigs" and worse. He mocked the disabled. He demeaned the Gold Star family of a Muslim serviceman killed in Iraq. He's a man who loves to spread pain - especially when it brings him cheers, and the alt-right screams his name in enthusiastic chants.
Now his campaign CEO is the founder and former executive chairman of Breitbart News, Stephen Bannon, who has trumpeted alt-right attitudes with his publication.
In the March article on the movement, Breitbart states: "The Establishment bears much of the blame. Had they been serious about defending humanism, liberalism and universalism, the rise of the alternative right might have been arrested. All they had to do was argue for common humanity in the face of black and feminist identity politics, for free speech in the face of the regressive Left's censorship sprees, and for universal values in the face of left-wing moral relativism."
Not even George Wallace was as openly adored by white nationalists, neo-Nazis and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizards as Donald Trump.
In Reno, Nev., Thursday, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton took aim at what the Los Angeles Times termed "Trump's rise as a dangerous cancer on the nation's political discourse" using this insurgent ideology of the alt-right that "extends from mere outside-the-box protectionist thinkers to flagrantly racist and anti-Semitic hatemongers."
Trump seems to be the movement's new messiah, and Clinton minced no words in connecting the dots between Trump and the ideology that fuels such hate.
"He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party," she said.
Clinton noted that racially-charged "paranoid fringe" has always existed in politics, but she added:
"It's never had the nominee of a major party stoking it, encouraging it and giving it a national megaphone. Until now."
She is, chillingly, correct.
Even if today's polls bear out and Clinton wins the election in November, America has much work to do to overcome the damage Donald Trump has wrought by ripping the bandage from our nation's rotting wounds.