Publisher's Synopsis
The Invisible Empire is a name used by several of the many versions of the Ku Klux Klan; this work is a series of essays which support the premise that the modern Republican Party, with Trump as their leader is the true inheritors of one of the versions of the Klan that actually gained national power during the first quarter of the 20th century. In many ways, what the Trump Presidency represents is this invisible empire sticking back against the more progress nation that has been created since the last time the Klan held national power. The collection of essays presents the similarities to Trump to that version of the Klan, with a concentration on the issue of immigration. What may prove confusing to many is that the title of the Ku Klux Klan has been used for many groups in the past; There were four main ones; the first fought against Reconstruction and to return Southern state governments to the control of the whites; the third was the force within the South that tried to preserve segregation and to fight against the rise and continuation of the Civil Rights movement. The fourth is primarily a neo-Nazi type groups, that is primarily a white hate group closely related to the prison based Aryan Nation. The second, however, was the group that used the incredible success of the blockbuster movie of their time named "Birth of a Nation" or as is was marketed in certain areas of the nation. The Klansman. This movie, which showed the Klan members as modern-day knights fighting corrupted governments (controlled by former slaves and Northern whites) and of course saving white woman from being ravished by Black soldiers; led to the spring up of Klan groups all over the nation. These groups were consolidated into a political force which led to the winning of Congress and the election of three Klan members in a row as president of the United States (Wilson, Harding and Coolidge.) This period on Klan dominance of American politics was one of nativism, extreme racism, and the use of conservative Christianity as a marker for being "truly American." The racist 1924 immigration laws reduced immigration and restricted it to virtually only whites being allowed to enter the US. This national government did nothing to try and end Jim Crow laws in the South; nor to try to stop the terror that the tried version of the Klan laid upon Blacks. This congress couldn't even pass an anti-lynching law. This version of the Klan fell apart based on scandals and internal powerplays; not because of decrease support for their ideas. However, with the rise of Fascism in the 1930's many Americans began to reject the concepts of the Klan, and racism itself. Then with the war and the coming of the Civil Rights movement, much of American turned against the premises of all the Klan, under any version. But, starting in the late 1960's with Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and onto the "Gingrich Revolution" the GOP embraced the main concepts of the Klan of the 1920's. The revival of the Klan under different names, led the GOP to gain control of Congress. They kept trying to find a national candidate that could successfully run a campaign base on racism, nativism and conservative Christianity. In Trump they found their man. It is clear that Trump's approach is to undo all we have done to make our country more progressive and integrated, and to have us return to the same policies of the Klan from the 1920's. Now, with Trump, for only the second time in modern US history has these forces been successfully combined to win national power; the first time was under the invisible empire, now with Trump, we can see that the invisible empire is striking back.
