In the moment, there's a great sense of relief, and that it will be nice to NOT have a leader that is a laughingstock around the world; not having to dread looking at the headlines every morning and wonder, what kind of crazy shit has that asshole done now? There will be a chance to undo some of the damage done in the last 4 years. Some.
But it's going to be a hard road. When Trump made it clear in 16 that he was going to make it a white-male, base election, I thought, well, good luck with that; that demographic has been shrinking for years. And then he managed to just pull it out, and I blamed Hillary: you had one job, and you turned out to be the only person in the country who couldn't beat the orange piece of shit. I think I, and many other people, owe her an apology now. As shown by this election, there are a lot more racist, reactionary, backwards redneck assholes in the country than I thought, and they crawled out from under their rocks in even greater numbers this year than 4 years ago.
Mitch McConnell is worse than Trump, because he's smarter and knows how to get things done, and he's got a all too good chance at holding power (if one of the GA seats flips, is it too much to hope for one R - I'm looking at you, Romney - to switch sides? Yeah, probably, but one can dream, no?). Maybe Biden can work some kind of compromise magic mojo and get some things done, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
But the real problem is when someone smarter and more polished than Trump comes along and runs his campaign again; there will be trial balloons in '22 and a full-fledged authoritarian on offer in '24. Anyone who runs for president is by definition a power-hungry maybe-megalomaniac, and there's a fine line between someone who has the ambition to take on the most powerful job in the world and willingly give it up if he loses, and someone who won't, if he has the chance to hold on to it. Hawley seems to be the front runner so far, but who knows; I don't think he has all that much charisma, but I've been wrong before. The point is, we could be looking at a real fascist next time around, not an incompetent wannabe, and it's been shown all too well that our system is not as strong as lots of people thought or hoped, and may not hold up. And the next one will have the advantage of a pre-stacked federal court system, including the Supremes. Will anyone be able to rouse the racists like Trump did? We're going to find out. I'm not sure I want to know the answer.
Sorry for being Debbie Downer, and this is a good and necessary step, but it's just the first one of a long march.