The Ku Klux Klan and the Antinomies of American Fascism, 1930–46

This article reframes the second Ku Klux Klan's decline between 1930 and 1946 as a metamorphosis rather than an epilogue. American White supremacism adapted to Depression-era conditions through what I term the antinomies of American fascism, contradictions between mass spectacle and provincial scale, terror and constitutionalism, reactionary ideology and modernizing technique. The Klan dispersed into paramilitary formations like the Black Legion and Kavalier Klub, serving as capital's auxiliary against labor while allying with the German–American Bund. Simultaneously, it maintained influence through systematic penetration of law enforcement and local government across the South. The 1944 IRS dissolution destroyed the institution while leaving intact the networks, violence, and ideology that reconstituted in postwar forms. Situating the Klan within comparative and transnational fascism studies, the article argues that American fascism operated not through state seizure but through federalism's interstices, a racial authoritarianism marginal to formal politics yet diffused throughout civil society.