In reality, the opposite has happened. Political violence has arisen not from the right, but from the left. Progressives are already predisposed to violence against Trump supporters as a consequence of the mindset wherein political rights are only accorded to those who ascribe to a slate of largely liberal viewpoints. Add to that the belief that your opponent is a fascist intent only on the usurpation of personal power and the destruction of the democratic system, and you get a toxic mix, one that makes the leap to justifying violence a short one indeed. As the socialist provocateur Fredrik deBoer, no friend of liberal pundits, wrote on Twitter: “Journalists with big platforms called Trump a literal fascist on the rise for months. How did you expect people to react to that?”

The street battles in San Jose on Thursday night were the logical, foreseeable consequence of branding Trump with the F word. If you call Trump a fascist often enough, people will begin to believe you. If you insist that this is a “Weimar moment” in which Western democracy is mortally threatened, a Weimar moment is what you’ll get. Given the number of Americans predisposed to believe a fascist with a real shot at the presidency can only be defeated through violent means, the conditional statement that begins with “If Donald Trump is a fascist” can only end one way.

It took millions of lives, trillions of dollars, and untold human suffering to defeat fascism the first time around. People know that; one needs only to look at Robert Capa’s photographs of D-Day to see the struggles of the Second World War are ingrained in our national consciousness. When pundits tell their readers that a fascist is mustering his forces to destroy American democracy, those readers react in a way that might be appropriate if Hitler’s reincarnation were indeed on the way to winning the presidency. (Hitler did, after all, come to power through democratic means, an uncomfortable reality for those who believe fully in the sanctity of the democratic process.)