The incessant drive to label any little thing Trump said as "racist" was political. There are a few times he really needed to be called out. But there were a lot of times when there was barely any smoke and no fire at all.

The change in usage overall, I agree, was probably mostly a social media superiority thing. But the Critical Discourse Analysis folks sure seemed happy to cash in on it (c.f. Robin DiAngelo) rather than try to rein it in over concerns about societal impacts.

Systemic racism is real, but it's hard to see that getting addressed effectively with so much noise and antagonism. Systemic anything is best addressed with high degrees of unity of purpose.