POST TRUMP, WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM CURRENT TRUMPITES?

Donald Trump, as prominently as he now looms over our collective psyche, will fade away, become obscure, irrelevant.  That ugly personification of braggadocio,  hatred, phoniness and flimflam, who insulted, cajoled and bullied his way through 16 Republican candidates, then played the Electoral College to perfection in 2016, will be gone.

His latest crybaby attempt to stir up the fiercest of his base, resulting in 5 deaths and desecration of the Senate chambers, will be the end of him as a national political player.  He may not go away quietly, but, it seems, he will go away, possibly facing criminal charges.

Richard Barnett of Gravette, Arkansas

I'm more afraid of the direction and influence of Trumpites, the 74 million, who backed Trump, many rabidly.  While I may have been born and raised on the southeastern outskirts of Seattle, I spent 30 impressionable years in Arkansas, then another 10 just outside Fort Worth, Texas.

I know these people at their most assertive, worked and drank beer with them.  While they may resent the so-called elite, didn't go to Harvard or Yale, in no way do they feel inferior.  They know in their hearts that "a country boy will survive," each with a thousand stories of how they've outwitted, outmaneuvered, outthought or outworked a Yankee, northerner, Californian or "ferener."

Unfortunately, the bulk of them have been fooled, hoodwinked, misled and been bamboozled by so-called "alternate facts," those propagated by Fox News, OAN, Newsmax and Rush Limbaugh.  A toxic mental diet is not conducive to recovery.  I know, having been raised in a high control religious cult, with absolute knowledge "we're right and you're wrong," I still have to check myself to make certain I'm not unconsciously steering in that old direction.

The demeanor and, more obviously, the shirts worn by the Trumpites invading congressional offices and chambers, reveal what we've known all along, the firm connection between Trump, racism and White supremacy.  "Camp Auschwitz" and "6,000,000 Was Not Enough" are obvious references to Hitler's death camp at Auschwitz were 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated.  All of this at the firm core of Trump's camp.

Yet, I've many friends, like Daniel Lenz, Maggie Ozuna, Dino Chavez, in the Trump orbit.  These are gentle, reasoned people.  We all know where we stand, but don't confront each other.  Others, more rabidly partisan, like Tad Hasse, unfriended us on social media some time ago, all over words about Trump.  Obviously, there are Trumpites and then there are Trumpites.

Twelve years ago, it felt validating, almost exhilarating to elect a Black president.  Some pontificate that the Trump thing was inevitable, a sort of course correction to acknowledge that the country that built itself significantly on the back of the black man for 400 years hadn't really come that far.

I didn't mention that included in my 30 years in Arkansas were 10 years immersed in the Black community in Little Rock.  That experience gave me SOME insight into racism, but no feeling of what it is really like to be Black in America.  Occasionally, in that environment, I did experience racism, but always knew that, as a white man, I could go anywhere in this country and be accepted as human.

Now, contemplating our country's next direction of travel, I simply hope we're capable of learning from history.