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"What do you make of this, folks"?

When the Klan was formed, there were no Southern Republicans, to form anything. When I reached voting age, in 1963, and registered as a Republican, the registrar tried to talk me out of it. My daddy was a staunch conservative, for all his 86 years, but didn't change his registration to GOP until he was 85.
I am a Southerner. I know that I am Swiss, Scot, and Cherokee. There are Black Folks that share a common ancestral name, so, who the hell knows which way the genes flowed?
I am a Republican for one reason only, FREEDOM!
If democratic demand has it's way, our Constitution will be history. I don't care what color I am, or you are, if you are here for FREEDOM!
If you prefer security, move your Butt to New York!

"When the Klan was formed, there were no Southern Republicans, to form anything."

Actually, that is wrong. The Klan was formed to drive Southern Republicans out of power during Reconstruction. For the first ten to twenty years after the Civil War the southern state legislatures were dominated by Republicans -- who represented the faction of the south that stayed loyal to the Union, for the most part.

The Klan's initial purpose was to drive these -- as they viewed them -- traitors out of power. That this also involved disenfranchising blacks was viewed as a feature, not a bug.

The Klan succeded so well that many 20th-Century southerners never realized that there had been a southern wing of the Republican Party. But when the Klan started, there was, and it was the mortal enemy of the Klan.