I think the ‘no smoke without fire’ thing regarding this is poised on the brink of change. Calling someone a racist or nazi these days is a hair’s breadth away from calling for someone to be tried as a witch. It’s been thrown around so much, so falsely, that it has rapidly lost any meaning except as a shorthand to say you don’t like someone who’s white and has a different opinion, and that no more debate should take place with them.
Well let’s hope its about to change, because as you say, its very anti-intellectual.