The Flag, The Cross, The Hood: Klan Fascism in America
Presidents of the United States
1921-1925: Warren G. Harding / J. Calvin Coolidge, Jr. (Republican)
1920: James M. Cox / Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic), Eugene V. Debs / Seymour Steadman (Socialist)
1925-1933: William G. McAdoo / Samuel M. Ralston (Democratic)
1924: Hiram W. Johnson / Carmi A. Thompson (Republican), Robert M. LaFollette, Sr. / Jacob S. Coxey, Sr. ("Progressive" --- Populist, Non-Partisan, Independent), Daniel W. Hoan / Devere Allen (Socialist)
1928: Herbert C. Hoover / George W. Pepper (Republican)
1933-1937: Charles W. Bryan / Robert L. Bullard (Democratic)
1932: Joseph I. France / Robert R. McCormick (Republican)
1937-1941: Charles W. Bryan / Hiram W. Evans (Democratic)
1936: George W. Norris / Herman L. Ekern (Republican)
1941-1949: Edward L. Jackson / J. Lister Hill (Democratic)
1940: Amos R. E. Pinchot / William F. Lemke (Republican)
1944: Suspended
1949: J. Strom Thurmond / Frank Hague (Democratic) [Disputed]
1949-1950: Richard M. Nixon / Jacqueline Cochran (Servicemen’s Union)
1948: J. Strom Thurmond / Frank Hague (Democratic), Robert A. Taft / Federick G. Payne (Republican)
National Managers of the United States
1926-1928: John W. Davis (Non-Partisan Democratic Consensus)
1928-1939: David C. Stephenson (Non-Partisan Democratic Consensus)
1939-1941: Arthur H. Bell (Non-Partisan Bullardite-Longist Democratic)
1944-1948: David C. Stephenson (Non-Partisan Democratic Consensus)
1948-1949: Herman E. Talmadge (Non-Partisan Democratic Consensus)
Warren G. Harding's heart attack was treated by later historians as a turning point in his administration, a demarcation line that was not exactly true. Even before his brush with death the embattled President was turning away from the Ohio Gang that had put him in the White House and towards the Progressives and Reformers of the Republican Party to try and clean up the mess his friends had put him in. And while he was unable to secure the popular support he needed, he was able to limp forward to the point where his announcement to not seek a second term was treated with a begrudging degree of respect. Calvin Coolidge, his VP attempted to put together a Run, but found himself wedged between Charles Hughes and Frank Lowden on the more conservative wing of the Party while Hiram Johnson was able to secure the Progressives and then the nomination itself. Johnson was weakened though when Robert LaFollette denounced him and ran a populist "Progressive" ticket and the Socialists nominated one of the Sewer Faction, aiming to pick up less radical votes rather then follow LaFollette on his crusade or attempt to win back support from the Communists. In the end, in spite of the damage he initially took in the Teapot Dome scandal, it was William McAdoo, the Democratic nominee who was able to win. McAdoo was an odd sort, much like his father in law, able to command the support of Progressives, Populists, and a certain Men's Social Organization.
Under McAdoo racial violence and Progressive reform came hand in hand with each other. In 1924 the former Secretary of the Treasury was not yet a Klan member --- only joining the organization after he left the White House after eight years in office --- but under him it did become a Federally Chartered organization and began to be given special authority by the Attorney General as the National Security League had during the Wilson Administration. Child Labor Laws, Wall Street Oversight, Efforts to promote Homesteading in the West, Nationalization of the Railroads, came with pogroms against Racial, Ethnic and Religious minorities and more and more, the images of White Shirts --- the pointed hoods being replaced by more conventional uniforms and often, simply White Armbands with the Klan's crest --- marching, brawling and saluting were beamed across the nation on newsreels and on the radio. Socialist, Communist and other radical political parties were proscribed in 1926 the same year that the National Manager amendment passed: creating a "Non-Partisan" office, appointed by Congress to oversee much of the day-to-day administration of the US Government, taking a progressive program that had been popular in many cities and putting it on a level never before seen. President McAdoo was able to create a work balance he supported for his administration but in the years to follow the office would become the personal perveiw of one man who with his massive influence over the ever-triumphant Democratic party was able to become a dicatator in all but name.
For the decade and a half after the Democratic triumph of 1924 America slipped into what was effectively a single party state. Opportunists flocked to the Democratic banner and to join the Klan, Self-Defense Klaverns, later re-designated Klompanies, marched though the streets with Thompson Anti-Bandit guns and operated re-education camps, klamps. The Socialists were pushed underground, the Republicans were hobbled with many party members harassed by the government and party splits that argued how to respond to the tightening noose, in the end, no decision was made and the party was transformed into a weak patsy, the Klan Democrats claimed that they were defending American Democracy and thus let an opposition party survive, exerting enough influence that it was never able to actually be opposition. Many in WASP America didn't mind, the Democrats and the Klan offered far more opportunities, and fighting the system could easily see one arrested and possibly executed as a Communist sympathizer. And anyway, why worry about the nature of the Democracy when everything was clearly fine? For many American minorities mass slaughter was always just one false accusation of a wink away, and often came with even less rational. For many refuge could only be found in the big cities, and often not even there.
In 1932 Charlie Bryan took the White House brushing aside weaker and weaker Republican opposition with each of this two votes but Robert Bullard his first Vice President would rise to become one of the two great threats to the Democratic-Klan system that D.C. Stephenson, the National Manager for 11 straight years was able to create. Bullard tapped into military veterans organizations and seemed more focused on Anti-Communism then Anti-Catholic or Anti-Black politics. Huey P. Long, the other great rival of the system would take the economic slump and growing corruption of the 1930s to exert his own influence while Stephenson became quietly notorious for his corruption and for his 'moral' issues as he roamed Washington City or the Summer Capital of Denver at nights with his personal driver. Eventually, briefly at the end of the Bryan years Stephenson would go too far, though things were kept as an inner-party affair, removed from office Bullard and Long were able to secure the post of National Manager for the State Manager of New Jersey, a Bullard Ally. They did not have long to celebrate though.
Freed from his managerial position but not charged or publicly denounced, Stephenson was able to go full bore to work on securing the Democratic nomination for Edward Jackson, a close personal ally who had been running Indiana for years now. Jackson was one of many Pro-Klan Republicans who had long ago crossed over to join the winning party, and with great economic and 'Social' Credentials, as well as Stephenson's influence on the white shirts, Jackson was able to beat out the opposition. (William Pelley, Gerald L. K. Smith, and Henry Breckinridge) Stephenson then went to work, using Arthur Bell's support for the Third Reich as a blunt interments to suggest that the Grand Wizard was disloyal and sought to abolish American Democracy.
Jackson and Stephenson were odd figures for the coalition of nations that sought to save the world for Democracy in the Second World War, but the farce of American Democracy was enough for the likes of British Prime Minister Leo Amery. It wasn't enough for Joseph Stalin but then, after his death in the battle of Moscow in 1942 that didn't really matter anymore. Jackson, and his Secretary of State Richard Russell were able to secure Mussolini's neutrality a decisive turn in a war which had been going against the Triple-Union since the war began with Hitler's Invasion of The Netherlands. But it was still a long and costly war. In 1942 US Army and Klan Divisions attempted to land on the French Coast at Normandy with Five Divisions, nearly all of them were obliterated, the courtmarshals that followed would see George Patton and Walter Waters, the commanding Generals of the Army and KKK troops executed for Cowardice as well as nearly 100 other officers. In the Pacific things were worse, the US Navy would go though a half dozen Commanding Admirals in the Pacific as they tried to fight with a shoestring force: For all the power that the United States could bring to the war its One Ocean Navy was spread to thin, and tactical innovation had been sacrificed for years in the name of political loyalty. The marines who tumbled off of Guadalcanal into horrifying captivity could only look on for years as the Navy struggled to build the forces it needed to fight, and this after watching what seemed to be a generation of pilots killed as their late-stage biplanes proved no match to the Zeroes flown by "Racial Inferiors" who could never stand up to the White Man. Eventually though numbers caught up. The Russians after the collapse of the Soviet Government were able to keep on fighting thanks to the British forwarding quite a bit of the Bonded and Leased supplies they were getting from the US. The Chinese weren't so lucky but in both cases the massive swaths of country that the Axis took became black holes for men and material as well as charnel houses of mass slaughter. 1944 would see the US and it's allies land troops on the Calais coast. The summer of 1945 would see them discovering the horrors of the Gas Chambers, the Slaughter of the Battle of Berlin and the Suicide of Hitler. Jackson was interested in seeing if Goering could take over and secure a peace with the Western Allies but when that proved impractical US forces, with growing horror at what they were seeing pushed on and the War in Europe would send when Speer became the last man standing after a series of Assassinations and gave up at Konigsburg in October. The War in the Pacific would in turn drag on another year, with the US government giddy at the idea of mass civilian casualties and equally shocked at the Slaughter of GIs as trey landed on the Home Islands under a downpour of suicide rockets, banzai charges and more conventional styles of fighting to the death. But in January of 1947 it was all over as well. The Emperor would hang from the Cherry Blossom Trees and what was left of the Japanese people would be thin on the ground for years to come, but victory was at hand.
But trouble was brewing for the White Shirts. Millions of Americans had served under arms in WWII. Many in the segregated units that after the disastrous Normandy Landings had become unavoidable. They and the WASPs hadn't served side by side but they had come out knowing they'd chewed the same mud, and seen the same madness. Many were fine going home, joining the party and joining the Klan. But others weren't. They'd been told they were fighting for Democracy and damn it they wanted it.
The young guns in the regime took advantage too, seeing Stephenson removed again with one of their own in charge. They had one of their own nominated for President, but this time there would be a real opponent: A one armed navy vet with a small baby blue, star studded tab on his uniform. Dick Nixon had kept his Destroyer afloat off Honshu in 1946 after the Commander and XO and the rest of the Bridge crew had been killed by a suicide attack. Supported by other young men like George Bush and George McGovern, Al Gore and Lyn Johnson the Democratic defectors and Gerald Ford the ex Republican, as well as Catholic Jack Kennedy who'd served as a supply officer for a segregated construction Battalion and millions of other young veterans who had seen what the road the Klan was heading down ended at, he went to work. The Servicemen were so dynamic that even the GOP nominee would go on to endorse them in an act of revolt that would see him dragged off in the night by White Shirts even before election day.
In the end of course, the Klan and the Democrats simply declared themselves the winners and decided that in a few days they'd arrest these new opponents and everything would go back to normal. What they didn't expect was that after two decades and a campaign that had offered a real chance of hope, that the American People weren't interested in the same old rotten government and hate.
Within a day of the election, those White Shirts with their Thompsons were taking fire in the cities, the suburbs and even the rural regions where they'd previously drawn the most support, and the regime found that its foundations were as rotten as its leadership.