That the election of 1920 produced this nobody of a president whom Americans barely remember today has hidden the fact that the election was a political and ideological tsunami. The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s became the ultimate symbol of the continuing vibrancy of the antiliberal tradition in America, spreading from the South to much of America. The new Klan’s target was the whole collection of alien peoples and beliefs. Whereas the original Klan had stuck to its narrow mission in the South of keeping Black people down and liberal whites out, this second incarnation of the Klan broadened its
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