WI: KKK coup
- Thread starter zesamofdepast
- Start date
Even temporarily seizing Washington is way, way beyond the mid-1960's Klan capacities.
Uh...
How did a few thousand mouthbreathers in white outfits manage to defeat the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, every Federal Law Enforcement Agency, every state and local law enforcement agency, and the tens of millions of U.S. veterans who have taken the Oath?
Once we have that explained, in some detail, without the use of handwave, we can comment on what happens next. Until then the concept is so far out of the realm of possible that I doubt that even Skippy can pull it off.
How did a few thousand mouthbreathers in white outfits manage to defeat the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, every Federal Law Enforcement Agency, every state and local law enforcement agency, and the tens of millions of U.S. veterans who have taken the Oath?
Once we have that explained, in some detail, without the use of handwave, we can comment on what happens next. Until then the concept is so far out of the realm of possible that I doubt that even Skippy can pull it off.
elkarlo
Banned
True it did and it was a spectacular failure. I meant size wise. If the klan could get enough of its guys and infiltrate the military , so everything together military as well as klan, they'd deploy a few thousand total.
And as I said in an earlier post, without a massive crisis, it's just not feasible . Not just with blacks, but unpopular with many whites as well
They lose, and lose hard. Not much the Third Klan could've done against the full brunt of the American military. Within a week (and that's being generous), Washington would be free from their hands, and a lot of them would be dead or in prison.
Ironically, there might be speculation of Soviet involvement.
I suspect that, in the 60's, it might be possible for a bunch of armed civilians who planned extensively, had some with military experience, and a pile of black market weapons could (barely) take Congress. Ideal time--a state of the union message with BAD weather. Probably fail, but if everything broke right, they hold most of the government.
Then they lose hard.
Then they lose hard.
An amusing accident involving a donkey, two drunken frat students and a truck delivering a few thousand Rings of Power to Sauron that somehow got lost on a highway in the middle of Oklahoma in front of a KKK meeting.
I don't have any other explanation.
Army and law enforcement would restore order in couple days and kill/arrest most of KKK. Then after power has restored to legal government it prohibits KKK permanentally. And hardly even Southerner white supremacist senators and representatives are going oppose that. KKK was ousting freely elected government and it is just unacceptable.
And at that point, it wouldn't even be necessary; the Civil Rights movement hasn't even started, and the Jim Crow laws are still present in force.
But even then, I'm not betting on the KKK pulling the coup off right. They're a South-only institution at this point, with little support in the more populous and prosperous North. The Army, even in the heights of the Great Depression would still roll over them.
Not then, either. Besides which, the Klan on the whole approved of the presidents of the 1920's.
Steve might have had a problem with that statement. In the mid-twenties, something like 30% of the native-born males in Indiana were Klan members.
The KKK in the 1920s has an outside shot of pulling something like this off. The KKK in the 1960s would probably lose a fight with the University of Alabama pep squad.
Geon
Donor
You would probably need a POD going back as far as the 20's. The scandals that rocked the Klan and caused it to dwindle in membership never occur. The Klan continues to remain a powerful force in politics state and national post World War II. It opposes civil rights legislation at the state level and forces Truman to rethink desegregating the military. I could see established KKK members in the military working with local councils to decide on a coup in this case if Johnson signs the civil rights act. I don't see a return to slavery but I do see a reestablishment of the "separate but equal" ideas that Jim Crow was based on.
In addition, I believe this would also mean the death of the peaceful civil rights movement. Dr. King is either imprisoned for several years as a "communist agitator" or dies in prison "mysteriously." You have radicals like Malcolm X and others leading a much more militant civil rights movement and there is a simmering race war brewing in the South and elsewhere as the result of the coup.
In addition, I believe this would also mean the death of the peaceful civil rights movement. Dr. King is either imprisoned for several years as a "communist agitator" or dies in prison "mysteriously." You have radicals like Malcolm X and others leading a much more militant civil rights movement and there is a simmering race war brewing in the South and elsewhere as the result of the coup.
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
Stop reporting this with "move to ASB". The ASB forum is for scenarios requiring magical intervention, not implausible scenarios.
Magical intervention. You mean like how the Toronto Maple Leafs can win the Stanley Cup?
To quote an old post of mine:
***
Not having a Stephenson scandal would not IMO have saved the Klan.
The Klan had reached its peak and was starting to decline even before the Stephenson scandal hit in 1925. Already in 1924 it suffered such setbacks as the defeat of governor Walter Pierce in Oregon and the victory of "Ma" Ferguson over Klansman Felix D. Robertson for governor of Texas.
The Stephenson affair was not the only cause of the Klan's decline. Another important factor was internal dissension, both at the national level (the dispute between William Joseph Simmons and his successor as Imperial Wizard, Hiram Evans) and locally. (It is remarkable how in city after city, even before Stephenson was convicted, large numbers of the Klansmen--in some cities virtually all of them--seceded and formed new organizations like the Minute Men of America in Denver, the Independent Protestant Knights of America in Niagara, New York, etc. See Kenneth Jackson, *The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915-1930,* https://books.google.com/books?id=xkgwSauBgTwC&pg=PA254 ) Another point is that electoral success became harder as the Klan's opponents united, and electoral frustration in turn led to decline in membership. (It also led non-Klan politicians who had associated themselves with the Klan to back away from it, so that joining the Klan would no longer bring patronage benefits.) Also, the Klan's issues became less compelling: Reds seemed less scary than in the early 1920s, immigration had already been restricted, Prohibition proved unenforceable, and the Catholic Church obviously was not going away. Finally, the sheer *novelty* of the group wore off--I think this factor is often underestimated. The 1920's was an era of short-lived crazes, and in some respects the Klan was one of them, though obviously more sinister than most. Even Al Smith's presidential candidacy in 1928 could not really revive it.
Maine was a hotbed of Klanism in the 1920's, because of the large number of French Canadian Catholics.
For this to be remotely successful in the 1960's, you would need to have the Klan's political power base continue to grow from the 1920's, and have a large minority of politicians throughout the country, not just the South. Even then it's borderland ASB, with the result a ruinous civil war.
For this to be remotely successful in the 1960's, you would need to have the Klan's political power base continue to grow from the 1920's, and have a large minority of politicians throughout the country, not just the South. Even then it's borderland ASB, with the result a ruinous civil war.