JAMIE KIRCHICK: Everybody Hates Nazis!: The symbolic politics of anti-Nazism in the age of Trump.

None of this is to downplay the toxicity of these deranged individuals, one of whom killed a young woman in Charlottesville (and wounded many others) by driving his car into a crowd of people. But some perspective is in order. The fact that there are real pedophiles who molest children does not imply that there is an epidemic of pedophilia in America or that local nursery schools are run by pedophiles who engage in satanic rites. Similarly, the fact that there are 400—or even 10,000—people who call themselves neo-Nazis in America is regrettable and dangerous in every single instance. It’s also normal. . . .

And yet ever since Donald Trump assumed the presidency, an increasing number of serious people seem to believe that they are engaged in a twilight struggle against Nazis, just like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. The hysteria began with the label Trump’s political opposition adopted for itself, “The Resistance,” a moniker that, unless you are burying weapons in the forests of Poland or hiding in the basements of French country houses, one has no right to assume.

But it gives meaning to their otherwise empty lives, and makes them feel virtuous enough to forget that they’ve been covering for Harvey Weinstein for decades.