That was the peak of the power of the new KKK. It had a big presence in the midwest and elsewhere in the north, with people concerned about immigrants, Catholics, and blacks who moved north.
The KKK was a big power backing McAdoo and the northern political machines were backing Smith, an Irish Catholic from NYC. There were a zillion ballots. They then needed 2/3 to nominate. Finally, they decided on an unknown compromise candidate, who lost badly.
I don’t see it has much to do with the current Democratic Party. The Democratic Party was simpathetic to the south in the Civil War and opposed to Reconstruction.
It has everything to do with the modern Democratic Party. Kamala refused to go to the Al Smith Charity Dinner and released a skit mocking Catholics.
Kamala raised legal defense funds for racist mobs using violence in the George Floyd riots.
She and her party have no problem with racial violence as long as it is anti-white. They have expanded their anti Catholic hate to hate for all Christianity.
Factions and targets adjust, but the Democrat party had a convention there that was a monument to their bigotry against some Christians and races, and they supported mob violence. The parallels to today are obvious for all to see.
There are NO parallels between Trump and the 1939 nazi bund rally.
“That was the peak of the power of the new KKK. It had a big presence in the midwest and elsewhere in the north, with people concerned about immigrants, Catholics, and blacks who moved north.”
It’s a fascinating period. What a lot of people don’t understand is that the KKK revival of the 1920s was basically what would now be seen a multi-level marketing scheme. The portrayal of the KKK in the 1915 movie “Birth of a Nation” has created an interest in what was a defunct group, and some clever people had the idea of recreating the klan, collecting dues, and selling them magazines, uniforms, etc. They were wildly successful for a couple decades before petering out, and have captured the public imagination in a disproportionate way ever since.