WI: Woodrow Wilson Joins the KKK? Implores other Dems to Follow

Say what you will about Woodrow Wilson but if there's one thing for certain, the man was a racist.
And given how he was the first US President to screen a film at the White House (and that film was of course Birth of a Nation) I had this idea come to mind...

What if sometime after he became enraptured by racial dogma of the film post-screening as he did IOTL, Woodrow Wilson went out and promptly and publicly joined the DC Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan while at the same time imploring other Democrats in Washington to do follow suit.

How would this effect both his and the overall status of the Presidency domestically?

What other major political figures could he plausibly get to join him?
 
First of all, the distinctive thing about the Second Klan was not its racism, which was pretty much a given in southern politics, among both pro- and anti-Klan politicians. It was its nativism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Catholicism. Wilson did not share any of these (remember, he appointed Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court and vetoed a literacy test for immigrants which was designed to discourage immigrants from southern and eastern Europe).

Another characteristic of the Second Klan was its religious fundamentalism, which again Wilson did not share: "...of course, like every other man of intelligence and education I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised." https://books.google.com/books?id=rndb5m5xNk0C&pg=PA263

As for the screening of *Birth of a Nation* (which Wilson claimed was just a favor for Thomas Dixon as an old friend) I'll repeat what I wrote hwew some time ago:

***

Did Wilson praise "Birth of a Nation"? It seems extremely doubtful.

"The viewing before the president, chief justice and various cabinet members occurred on the evening of February 18. There is a tradition that the President said to Thomas Dixon after the presentation, "It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." The problem is that this quotation first appears in print in 1937 without attribution. Dixon did not quote Wilson to this effect in his memoirs. The only surviving person at the viewing in 1977 told Arthur Link that Wilson seemed lost in thought during the showing, and that he walked out of the room without saying a word when the movie was over." http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrow...Hvdng&user=&pw=

Richard Schickel in *D. W. Griffith: An American Life*, says on page 619 that while he accepts the attributed quote ("perhaps the most famous words ever spoken about a film"), "Yet no one has been able to fully authenticate it. In print, so far as I can determine, its provenance is based entirely on secondary sources." https://books.google.com/books?id=-YFNfV5fRDgC&pg=PA619

Moreover, three years after the alleged praise, Wilson wrote to Joseph Tumulty that "I have always felt that this was a very unfortunate production and I wish most sincerely that its production might be avoided, particularly in communities where there are so many colored people." https://books.google.com/books?id=4N3EeOX0w44C&pg=PT271
 
First of all, the distinctive thing about the Second Klan was not its racism, which was pretty much a given in southern politics, among both pro- and anti-Klan politicians. It was its nativism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Catholicism. ....

... Another characteristic of the Second Klan was its religious fundamentalism, which again Wilson did not share: "...of course, like every other man of intelligence and education I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised." https://books.google.com/books?id=rndb5m5xNk0C&pg=PA263

...

The Klans post 1950 focus on racial issues has obscured the 1915 - 1950 agenda of the Klans. I'm using the plural as from around 1925 any coherent national or unified Klan ceased to exist as the regional segments went their seperate ways.

In the view of the revived Klan of 1915 the 'Colored' question was considered settled & effectively dealt with by the ad hoc lynch mob. The Klan leaders mobilized their followers with a hate aimed at about anyone not a White Anglo Saxon Protestant. Slavs, Mediterranean races, Asians, and even Scandinavians or Germans were a threat to "Americanism" Religion was also a major issue and any outside the Protestant churches of English origin were suspect.

The Klan leaders of those years attached the onus of vices such as gambling, alcohol, opium, prostitution & unfettered sexuality, to the degenerate non WASP ethnic & religious groups. The Klan of 1915 - 1918 were supporters of restriciting alcohol use, & many supporters of the Volstead Act.

The problem for membership is obvious & is one of the reasons the Klaverns started breaking away from the national leadership. Circa 1925 regional & local Klan leaders were trying to reconcile with Catholic leaders & pretending Germans & 'Norskies' were ok all along. Another problem was the Klansmen found that Prohibition was being applied to them as well & not just to the inferior & degenerate types. Enforcement of morality is tougher when done by men who had a stiff drink earlier in the evening.
 
You'd have to prevent his stroke and make him about 20 years younger (a man in poor health in his sixties will not be too interested in devoting long nights to morality enforcement) for him to even consider joining the local KKK, and even then he probably wouldn't.
 
Say what you will about Woodrow Wilson but if there's one thing for certain, the man was a racist.
And given how he was the first US President to screen a film at the White House (and that film was of course Birth of a Nation) I had this idea come to mind...

What if sometime after he became enraptured by racial dogma of the film post-screening as he did IOTL, Woodrow Wilson went out and promptly and publicly joined the DC Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan while at the same time imploring other Democrats in Washington to do follow suit.

How would this effect both his and the overall status of the Presidency domestically?

What other major political figures could he plausibly get to join him?

As a 9 year old kid Wilson (son of a Southern plantation and slave owner) witnessed the end of the Confederacy in Atlanta and the arrest of Jefferson Davies in 1865.
 
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