Introducing Donald Trump’s fire-eaters: How the Republican Party made the mob that the GOP frontrunner exploits

Prior to the American Civil War, southern pro-slavery demagogues known as "fire-eaters" predicted the advent of harrowing slave revolts incited by Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist movement. In truth, the feverish screeching of men like Edmund Ruffin, Robert B. Rhett and William L. Yancey amounted to nothing more than disinformation and agitprop, completely exaggerating the threat to the southern way of life. The extremism on display by the fire-eaters led directly to popular support for sece