Getting rid of Trump is the removal of a malignancy

But that doesn't necessarily mean a full return to health.

The public sensed something that polls did not detect.  Although pre-election polls predicted that Joe Biden was favored over Trump by many points, there was a great reluctance on the part of many people to trust those numbers.  Part of their wariness was because of how wrong the polls were about the outcome of the Clinton-Trump contest.  The wary people were right.  Although Joe Biden came out on top, his win was not anywhere near the magnitude suggested by the polls.  People are again asking what is wrong with the polls.  The insidious reason is that some people who are polled lie. 

Some years ago I was the poll coordinator for a newspaper.  As polls are very expensive, the newspaper joined with other news media in the region to sponsor polls and find out what the public thought on crucial issues.  My task was to work  with representatives from other media to determine just what information we wanted to obtain from the polls.  We used a polling organization that was a direct descendant of the original Gallup polls, and that organization did the actual surveying.  A fact not  well understood is that for a survey to be accurate, the sample from which respondents are drawn must reflect the proportion of characteristics of the population of people represented.  That is a complicated and tricky business.  It is not a matter of randomly choosing names out of the telephone book.  If the sample does not reflect the population in terms of gender, age, education, and other significant factors, the poll will not produce very accurate information.  

But, we found that  even if the sample is an accurate portrait of the population, the resulting information might be inaccurate because some people lie.  

Why would people lie in an anonymous poll?  Because they do not want to admit  (to themselves and others) that they are malefactors--people who are willing to break the law and commit offenses against their fellow citizens.  The age of Trump has produced many of these people.  They are people who know full well that Trump is a corrupt, lying, malicious, low-life conniver.  But while they wish to be seen as righteous, upstanding citizens, they will indulge themselves in all manner of evil behavior if it benefits them.  The Guardian explains why such people gave such avid support to Trump:

So what can we say about the voters who stuck with Trump? First of all, this was no reluctant nose-holding: it no longer makes sense to say people voted for Trump “in spite of” his worst qualities, those are clearly a major part of the appeal.

Removing Trump from the White House will, in effect, remove a burgeoning, malignant tumor, but the infected tissue in the body politic which produced him will remain.  Trump as president gave people some comfort in indulging their iniquities in a country which professes decency as a national characteristic.  Many  prefer a leader who gives them license to indulge themselves.  They will be there to frustrate Joe Biden in any efforts to restore humane decency as a standard of conduct.  Their standard of American greatness as presented to them by Trump was unbridled avarice and mendacity.  And they will long for those good old days, as they seek a leader who embodies those qualities again.

The usual procedure when a cancerous growth is removed is to undergo chemo or radiation therapy to clear retaining infection from the body.  In socio-political terms,  the factors of such therapy are the scorn and contempt of people who see honesty and decency as the essential premises on which democracy operates.  But the avoidance of such therapy is why people lie to poll-takers, their fellow citizens, and themselves.