The Political-Emotional Economy of Interwar Fascism and Authoritarianism, With a Focus on the KKK and the Bund

This thesis examines the KKK and its fascist friends from 1915-1945 as a means of analyzing the changing role of the Klan in a changing international order. The KKK claimed to be, the defender of nativism, keeper of racial purity, and the guardians of white American way of life, but as an organization it was less unified. Part of this can be attributed to decentralization across U.S. states. This thesis contends that there was a growing fascist affect economy, within the transatlantic Euromerican community. Even as it declined in organizational coherence in the 1930s, the Klan was involved in a larger conversation than simply American nativism. It came to identify with international fascist organizations and embrace terminology, and conspiracies, while always rejecting close comparisons. Its return to nativism during the Second World War allowed its survival, even while continuing to participate in the affective language it once shared with fascism.