Fox News host Laura Ingraham went on a shocking racist tirade during the Wednesday night broadcast of her show.

“The America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore. Massive demographic changes have been foisted on the American people, and they are changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like,” she said. “This is related to both illegal and, in some cases, legal immigration that, of course, progressives love.”

Historian Kevin Kruse delivered a massive and scholarly Twitter response that traced Ingraham’s comments to the rise of the second Ku Klux Klan in the 20th century.

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“This bears strong echoes of the racist screeds of the 1910s and 1920s that paved the way for the rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan and immigration restriction at home, and much worse abroad,” he wrote.

“The Ku Klux Klan used this popular panic over immigration to revive itself as a national organization in the 1920s,” Kruse continued.

He discussed a Grand Dragon meeting in 1923 that “focused a great deal on the supposed demographic threat that new immigration posed to old-stock Americans and the need to crack down on it.

Kruse then explained how America helped the Nazis form their ideology through racist legislation.

“The popular panic over immigration, and the pseudo-scientific justifications for nativism and racism, came together in the push for the National Origins Act of 1924, a measure that drastically reduced immigration from SE Europe and banned Asians from immigrating entirely,” Kruse explains.

This law “served as a model for the racial citizenship laws that took root in Nazi Germany a decade later.”

Kruse concludes with a warning: “We need to remember that, a century ago, unhinged fear-mongering about “demographic changes” in the American population led not just to drastic immigration restrictions at home, but to disastrous horrors abroad.”

Read the full thread below.

This bears strong echoes of the racist screeds of the 1910s and 1920s that paved the way for the rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan and immigration restriction at home, and much worse abroad. https://t.co/gPBsQCulPC

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

Consider Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (1916), which complained about unwanted demographic changes in the same terms.

Older Americans from the "Nordic race," Grant warned, were increasingly being displaced by newer immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. pic.twitter.com/2jjFyc38aM

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, Grant complained, weren't reproducing at rates fast enough to keep up with "the Slovak, the Italian, the Syrian and the Jew."

"Suicidal ethics" permitted this unwanted immigration, which was already "exterminating" the old stock American "race." pic.twitter.com/jCL3l7RsEN

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

In The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World Supremacy (1920), Lothrop Stoddard warned that white races were being engulfed by the more fertile colored races. pic.twitter.com/nIyaxOeX9I

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

In the Saturday Evening Post, Kenneth Roberts warned about arrivals of Polish Jews, who were "human parasites."

Unrestricted immigration would create "a hybrid race of people as worthless and futile as the good-for-nothing mongrels of Central America and Southeastern Europe."

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

The Ku Klux Klan used this popular panic over immigration to revive itself as a national organization in the 1920s.

If you're interested, I did a thread about its general influence here: https://t.co/isuiyKy30h

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

In 1922, the Klan's Imperial Wizard warned about "the tremendous influx of foreign immigration, tutored in alien dogmas and alien creeds, slowly pushing the native-born white American population into the center of the country, there to be ultimately overwhelmed and smothered." pic.twitter.com/Mf4XDYT40S

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

In 1923, a meeting of Grand Dragons of the Klan focused a great deal on the supposed demographic threat that new immigration posed to old-stock Americans and the need to crack down on it.

Here's one passage. More here: https://t.co/hTrKGrVnHB pic.twitter.com/63eIet2PsX

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

The popular panic over immigration, and the pseudo-scientific justifications for nativism and racism, came together in the push for the National Origins Act of 1924, a measure that drastically reduced immigration from SE Europe and banned Asians from immigrating entirely.

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

Here's Senator "Cotton Ed" Smith (D-SC) invoking Madison Grant's work in his speech calling for passage of the immigration restriction law. pic.twitter.com/QHjHvl3ADW

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

The National Origins Act of 1924 was passed by overwhelming margins in both houses of Congress, with equally strong support from both major parties. pic.twitter.com/TqQIFcLDip

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

The National Origins Act of 1924 not only shut the door on a centuries-old tradition of open immigration to America.

As James Whitman has noted, it also served as a model for the racial citizenship laws that took root in Nazi Germany a decade later. pic.twitter.com/VPPfGP8Z2U

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

We need to remember that, a century ago, unhinged fear-mongering about "demographic changes" in the American population led not just to drastic immigration restrictions at home, but to disastrous horrors abroad.

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2018

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… then let us make a small request. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We’ve launched a weekly podcast, “We’ve Got Issues,” focused on issues, not tweets. Unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. We’re not part of a conglomerate, or a project of venture capital bros. From unflinching coverage of racism, to revealing efforts to erode our rights, Raw Story will continue to expose hypocrisy and harm. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

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