Some years ago, people marched for racial equality, and to a huge measure, helped to make the nation better, more equal, even if there remains much work to do. We now have a name for these people. White Supremacists.

As July 4 and its barbecues arrived this year, the activist and former N.F.L. quarterback Colin Kaepernick declared, “We reject your celebration of white supremacy.”

The movie star Mark Ruffalo said in February that Hollywood had been swimming for a century in “a homogeneous culture of white supremacy.”

The director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of New York City’s most prestigious museums, acknowledged this summer that his institution was grounded in white supremacy, while four blocks uptown, the curatorial staff of the Guggenheim decried a work culture suffused in it.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board issued an apology two weeks ago describing itself as “deeply rooted in white supremacy” for at least its first 80 years. In England, the British National Library’s Decolonising Working Group cautioned employees that a belief in “color blindness” or the view that “mankind is one human family” are examples of “covert white supremacy.”

It had once been the epitome of liberalism to aspire to a colorblind society. Now it’s just an example of “covert white supremacy,” and something incomprehensible about “colonizing.”

One fighter in the battle for many years was the mayor of San Francisco in 1986. She was loved and appreciated then, so much so that a school was named after her in 2006. By then, she was one of California’s senators, having served in that office since 1992. She was there a long time. She’s now 87 years of age. Whether she should have gracefully aged out of politics is a fair question, but that she has served the Democratic Party with distinction over her many years was never in doubt. Until now.

In 2006, the San Francisco Public School system named an elementary school after Senator Dianne Feinstein. Now, the government seeks to remove her name from the school. Her offense? When Feinstein was mayor in 1986, she “reportedly replaced a vandalized Confederate flag, one of several historic flags flying in front of City Hall at the time.” Unbelievable. Even DiFi is not woke enough for San Francisco. No one is safe. And of course, the City will also cancel George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and everyone else.

At the conclusion of the confirmation hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Feinstein, ranking member, told committee chair Lindsay Graham that it was one of the best hearings she’d experienced and gave him a hug.

Poor Senator Feinstein. Lindsey Graham must have given her the hug of death.

It’s not that the passions of the moment against Judge Barrett aren’t understandably running high and hot, but DiFi, as she’s affectionately known, has not only been around for a while but done quite a bit for the causes of equality and liberalism. Then again, as I’ve mentioned on occasion, liberalism is the antithesis of today’s progressivism, the extremely illiberal bastardization that usurps some liberal goals and seeks to impose them by force and the destruction of anyone who still believes in the archaic notion that the ends do not justify the means.

Now DiFi is a traitor to the cause.

Was it her rumored replacement of the confederate flag years ago, when it had not yet become accepted reality that it was tantamount to flying the Nazi flag and there was a beloved television show where this flag was painted on the roof of a ’69 Dodge Charger called, dare I say it, the General Lee? It’s entirely understandable that this flag would offend black people, and that our awareness today of its message informs us that it should never again fly.

But it wasn’t flown then to be offensive, but merely for lack of appreciation of how it was taken, and in recognition that for many in the south, it was a matter of heritage notwithstanding its racist implications. It’s wonderful that we’ve come to recognize the insensitivity of flying this flag in San Francisco and elsewhere. That’s how we evolve, and should evolve. But it wasn’t intended to be offensive. Then again, benign intentions are archaic too.

Is Stern, who works at Slate as a legal staff writer and, theoretically, should feign some small degree of neutrality in the old world where writers about the law hoped to have some credibility rather than broadcast their hysteria as torchbearers of the wokiest future, the arbiter of who deserves to be elected by voters? He’s very good at screaming for blood from anyone who fails his purity test. He’s not so good at hiding his feelings, which is reflected in his legal writings.

But Stern has a point, that there were thousands of “progressive activists” who hated the confirmation of Barrett, whether because of the “stolen seat” or because Barrett is believed to be the personification of the Handmaiden’s Tale. And here’s the “liberal lion” of the Dems for decades, before Stern was a twinkle in his father’s eye, hugging, saying nice things, to this Graham guy. Should she have punched him? Spit in his eye? At least said nothing nice and certainly not touched him. That’s what a good progressive would have done in honor of the shrieking hordes whom Stern represents.

Is that why her name is being stripped from the public school where it was installed a mere 14 years ago? Along with the names of once-beloved presidents, Washington and Lincoln? Sure, she’s a Democrat. Sure, she’s spent decades in the Senate fighting for liberal causes. So is it just the hug and kind word, or was she always, in the eyes of the new-woke, a white supremacist?

Ten years ago, white supremacy frequently described the likes of the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke, the neo-Nazi politician from Louisiana. Now it cuts a swath through the culture, describing an array of subjects: the mortgage lending policies of banks; a university’s reliance on SAT scores as a factor for admissions decisions; programs that teach poor people better nutrition; and a police department’s enforcement policies.

Those of us who fought for racial equality were once considered pretty darn lefty libs, and we took our lumps for it. Now we’re white supremacists, klansmen sans hoods, for having fought for equality, which isn’t nearly good enough to sate cutting edge progressives like Stern.