According to a new Pew Research poll, 18% of Americans think Barack Obama is a Muslim. Surprisingly, even organizations like the Associated Press, who ordinarily have a hard time differentiating honest debate from blatant falsehood, in this case repeatedly take the unequivocal position that this view is “incorrect”.

There’s a couple things going on here worth noticing. First, there is this flexibility that many conservatives have with English language words. It’s often unimportant what words actually mean, when they have a scary or unsavory connotation, they can serve perfectly well as labels, sticking to their targets not so much as literal descriptors, but rather as designations of bad intentions, or even as an enemy, a member of a hostile tribe. This process of re-definition, or in some cases de-definition of common, well understood words is something they’ve been using to great effect for some time. Even as they cry out over some ill-defined loss of “liberty”, they have made the term “Liberal” toxic. And over the last year or two, watching the usual suspects label Obama simultaneously “Socialist”, “Marxist”, “Fascist” and “Nazi” would be hilarious if it wasn’t so effective. So now we have “Muslim”, a catch-all label for all the bad things you can be: Foreign, Subversive, Violent, Anti-American, Terrorist (another word that has come to lose all it’s actual meaning) and Criminal. It’s not that Muslims are just people worshiping a different faith tradition, it’s that they are to be feared and loathed, even battled for world domination.

But it’s much more than that. This is a clear indication that the term “Muslim” has taken on a new role in American political discourse. It is an epithet, to be sure, a resounding invective, a label that marks it target as something foul, someone to be hated and feared. And even more, it is rapidly becoming the primary tribal identifier for this generation. We have now overlaid a gigantic set of Meta-Tribes over all our other tribal suspicion and fear. You might fall into any number of other categories and groups, but now you’ve got to make clear your ultimate affiliation: Christian or Muslim. But be careful – once again, words don’t necessarily mean what we think they mean. In this demand that we all specify our ultimate loyalty, Jews, for example, are “Christians”. Most people of color will be “Muslims”, and all will be suspected of Muslim loyalties. It’s has yet to be determined, but I suspect most atheists are going to be designated Muslims too. It’s like Bloods and Crips, Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians. One side is inherently good, and the other evil and a dangerous threat.

But note well – as the Obama example makes clear, we are not the sole determinant of our own loyalties. Our own statements about where we belong on the Muslim/Christian divide can be challenged, even disregarded completely. Just as a right-of-center corporatist politician can come to be labeled a “Socialist”, just as a Judge who decides cases in a way we do not approve is automatically a “Judicial Activist”, so it is that anyone who is outside of the ideology of the group can be designated a Muslim.

So, if “Muslim” is the new “Communist”, the designated existential threat to truth, justice and the American way, the reason to build weapons and prisons while tearing down civil liberties and basic values like equal justice, where does that lead us? Well, America is not unfamiliar with racial prejudice and tribal hatreds, so I suspect that American society will integrate this broad, irrational hate into the rich tapestry of other fears and hostility that often sits at the bottom of many American’s ideology. But there is something else here, a reason to be concerned that there might be a short, direct path to violence in this case. America has gone to war officially against two Muslim nations, is engaged in at least three more (Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia) and is locked in a very vocal stand-off with Iran. War has already been used, and continues to be viewed as the solution to this whole pesky Muslim problem. If the only way to resolve our (mostly imaginary) differences is to kill them, then it can only be a matter of time before the killing starts anew.