Nativist politics emboldening KKK leaders' hopes for growth
By Max Lewontin
JUNE 30, 2016
... Klan leaders say membership is up in recent years. They argue that politics are drifting toward their long-held ideals, pointing to popular appeals to American exceptionalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric that many analysts believe have helped fuel Donald Trump's momentum toward the Republican presidential nomination.
"You know, we began 40 years ago saying we need to build a wall," Arkansas-based Klan leader Thomas Robb told the AP ...
In Eden, N.C., Chris Barker, imperial wizard of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, said his local group, known as a Klavern, was growing. "Most Klan groups I talk to could hold a meeting in the bathroom in McDonald's," Mr. Barker told the AP. But his Klavern, he said had "close to 3,800 members."
The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors anti-Semitism and discrimination, says that Mr. Barker's Loyal White Knights is the most active Klan group today, but puts its membership at no more than 200 people. The Anti-Defamation League says total Klan membership across the country is around 3,000 ...
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/0630/Report-Nativist-politics-emboldening-KKK-leaders-hopes-for-growth
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)Those actions lead to a quick decrease in their membership. It sure appears that a black President changed all of that.