Confession: I learned the word “fascist” from the Coen Brothers.

In their 1998 film The Big Lebowski, the Malibu Chief of Police hurls his coffee at The Dude’s head who yells, “Ow! F– Fascist!”

It’s a funny moment in the movie. But why is it a punchline? The Dude is beaten by the police because they don’t want people like him in their community.

Sounds like fascism to me.

But it’s funny because the words come from The Dude, right? A deadbeat. A hippy. You know the kind. People who are always playing the Hitler card.

I’ll admit, not everyone who gets called a Nazi really is one. But no matter how much these terms are misused, we cannot fail to use them when they’re appropriate. And they’re appropriate now.

Maybe it was okay to laugh at the Dudes of the world when human beings weren’t being disappeared from our streets, but that’s not the world we live in anymore.

This administration is fascist. ICE is our secret police, and a prison that no one leaves alive is a death camp.

Unlike Hitler, Trump hasn’t killed six million Jews. But if we wait until he does, what’s the point?