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 Trump is gone, and that is a good thing. The Republicans made a bad mistake during the primaries in 2016.  They selected a man who was neither decent as a human being nor qualified to hold office. He was defendable, if at all, only on the idea that his administration’s policies, as distinct from his behavior and desires, were less bad that what the Democrats would do. Many people who were no fans of the Democrats decided before the election that the behavior and desires were bad enough, and the record on policies mixed enough that he needed to go. His inexcusable behavior since the election should have been enough to make those who voted for him reach the same conclusion.  Prior to December 14^th, it was only foolish, mendacious, disgraceful, and harmful to the country. From then to January 6^th it was also a blatant attempt to remain in power by illegal and unconstitutional means.  He deserves impeachment and conviction for that, irrespective of whatever blame he should have for the riot on the 6^th.

Now the Democrats are in control of the executive branch, and that is a bad thing, necessary to get rid of Trump, but still bad. Biden is not an America-hating leftists, but he is a dishonest, wrongheaded, big government Democrat who will do the country a good amount of harm. His policies on taxes and regulation and his choices for judges likely will be worse than Trump’s. He will be worse on school choice, energy, the right to self defense, and maybe spending and deficits  though he would have to go some to outdo Trump there. (On the other hand he should be better on trade, NATO, foreign relations in general, holding local police responsible for their actions, and far better on public behavior and demeanor. He at least is not an enemy of the republic, and at the end Trump was.) 

The behavior of the bureaucrats likely will become much worse.  Biden will follow Trump's practice of getting what he wants by executive order, and many of those orders will give officials more authority. There likely also will be a change of tone apart from anything official.  There are envious, power hungry, resentful people out there who are eager to show  their fellow citizens who is boss, and many of them are employed in the federal bureaucracy.  They now will have more weight to throw around and probably feel freer to throw it. The country still has an independent judiciary, and people probably will need to be ready to take advantage of that and file lawsuits  as needed.

Then there is the risk of political persecution.  John Brennan has declared that libertarians should be treated as enemies of the state. One can hope that this is only an isolated rant from a  nasty authoritarian, but I have not heard of any of Biden’s people disagreeing.  Reporters should ask the new press secretary how the president feels about turning the secret police loose on political dissidents.  A wrong answer there would immediately make his administration  more authoritarian than Trump’s ever was.

In politics the next couple of years will not be fun, and people who believe in the liberal ideas of liberty and individual rights will have a fight on their hands.  Trump and his flavor of bad are gone, but the game has not gotten any easier.