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This is the Politics and More podcast. I'm David Remnick.

I just read a terrific book about the history of the Ku Klux Klan called The Second Coming of the KKK and the author Linda Gordon.

Shows how the clan, which was originally focused on violently suppressing blacks in the South,

was reborn in the 1920s as a nationwide movement.

And in this second iteration, the clan targeted not only African Americans, but Jews, Catholics,

Muslims, Mexican Americans, and Asian immigrants.

Discrimination was the new patriotism.

Linda Gordon writes how millions of people joined the clan in the 1920s in the span of just a few years,

and among them were mayors, congressmen, senators, and governors. It's a period with very sobering lessons for our current moment.

One of the things your book makes so startlingly clear is that the clan was not something that was to the side of American

political life. How can you illustrate how deeply the clan penetrated into political office

and political life? How high did it rise? Didn't go to the presidency of the United States?

Well, almost because several presidents were, in fact, members such as Harry Truman,

...