Most alarmingly, the Ku Klux Klan, fueled by anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Black racism, bravely marched in cities large and small. The Klan became a mass movement and wielded great political power. It was crucial for the enforcement of Prohibition, for example. When this organization was disbanded in the late 1920s, many Klansmen and women turned to new fascist groups and the radical right more generally.
Sidelined by the Great Depression and the New Deal, the illiberal right regained momentum in the late 1930s and gained grassroots support in the 1950s through fierce anti-communism and opposition to the civil rights movement. As early as 1964, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Alabama Governor George Wallace began honing a rhetoric of white grievance and racial hostility that would appeal to the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. This failure put wind in the sails of the John Birch Society and the Young People for Freedom.
Four years later, Wallace had enough support as a third-party candidate to win in five states. Then in 1972, as a Democrat again, Mr. Wallace won primaries in both the North and South, but was forced out of the race after an assassination attempt. The growing backlash against school desegregation and feminism added fuel to the fire on the right, paving the way for the ascendancy of conservatives in the 1980s.
By the early 1990s, neo-Nazi and Klansman David Duke had won a seat in the Louisiana state legislature and won nearly three-fifths of the white vote in his gubernatorial and U.S. senatorial campaigns. Pat Buchanan, seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 1992, called for “America First,” fortifying the border (the “Buchanan Fence”), and a culture war for America's “soul.” The National Rifle Association organized. Powerful forces on the right and the Republican Party.
When Trump questioned the legitimacy of Barack Obama's presidency, the plan quickly became known as “birtherism,” a Reconstruction-era approach that denies the legitimacy of black political rights and power. Used racist metaphors. In doing so, Mr. Trump began to shore up a coalition of damaged white voters. They were ready to push back against the country's growing cultural diversity and their challenge to traditional hierarchies of family, gender, and race, as personified by Mr. Obama. They had a lot to build on.
