nouns - Adjectival Usage of Racist


I have noticed a trend going back at least a decade of using the word racist (and for that matter sexist) as an adjective. This doesn't appear to fit the pattern of -ism words, which become -ist when applying to a follower of a belief and -istic to form the adjective.


-ism



A distinctive practice, system, or philosophy, typically a political ideology or an artistic movement.


The storm of conflicting opinions centers [sic] on the Mrs. Thatcher who became a symbolic figure, even an 'ism'.



-ist



A follower of a distinctive practice, system, or philosophy, typically a political ideology or an artistic movement:


You can’t be born an '-ist'.



-istic



A suffix of adjectives (and in the plural, of nouns from adjectives) formed from nouns ending in -ist and having reference to such nouns, or to associated nouns in -ism (deistic; euphuistic; puristic). In nouns, it usually has a plural form ( linguistics).



This is now a widespread usage and in fact the top three search results on EL&U stack exchange all use racist as an adjective; 1, 2, 3, search.


Why have certain words' adjective forms been ignored in favour of their 'follower' forms?


Furthermore, why do we still use words like artist and artistic, have they just still been around in popular culture while the others have been taken over by the -ist form?


Edit: Thanks to @sumelic for a list of -ist words, which helps put this in context and shows that this trend goes back well over a decade




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