Alternate History

The disgraced WaPo does a good job of supporting the argument that the KKK was born of the Democratic Party:

Members of the KKK in the South acted as a “strong arm” for Democratic politicians during the Reconstruction Era, and Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was associated with the KKK, spoke at the 1868 Democratic National Convention...  

In the South of the 1920s, the Klan was a militaristic and terroristic wing of the Jim Crow-loving Democratic Party... 

When the members of the Klan were Democrats, as in the 1920s, as well as in the '40s when they were called 'Dixiecrats,'

In spite of their findings, they come to the conclusion that we shouldn't connect the two:

Although there is some historical link between Democrats and the KKK, to say that the hate group was founded by the Democratic Party is misleading.

If the KKK had been born of the other party and had been called 'Dixiepublicans', would the WaPo have had as much difficulty linking the two? It's only a matter of time before they publish an article on why Abraham Lincoln really wasn't a Republican.