He's gone, but the disease isn't.

Voting Trump out of office was like surgically removing a malignant tumor.  The noxious growth is cut away, but infected cells are left behind to spread and attack the body again.  America is in a state of remission, but diseased cells are festering away in the body politic, evolving to flourish again in a deadlier form.

Trump's critics habitually say that Trump brought American democracy close to failure. They are wrong.  American democracy did fail in many aspects during Trump's tenure.  Although Joe Biden won 81 million votes to install him as president, Trump nevertheless got 74 million.  When 47 percent of the people vote against the principles of equality and justice, we have already lost the republic.  The nation has descended into a state of dysfunction in which the principles of democracy cannot work.  In such a state, democracy can be considered, but not practiced.

The case is illustrated by what the many Trump cabinet officials have  said.  Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said:  

“If we do not as Americans confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society and among our leaders in both the public and private sector — and regrettably at times even the nonprofit sector — then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years.”

The people who voted for Trump made an explicit statement that they prefer corrupt authoritarianism over honest democracy when they cast their votes. In the states where they hold majority rule, the democracy is not merely in a state of decline.  It is dead.  The laws passed to limit voting rights and criminalize abortion are issues of a police state.  And the persistent lies  about voting fraud and the creation of a criminal class is setting up a system as oppressive as anything the Nazi regime or the Soviet dictators could devise.  Half the nation is not interested in freedom and equality, but in establishing a system in which it can imprison and execute people they do not like.  

Above are some South Dakota politicians who are proudly standing up for the traditions of lying (more than 26,000 lies on Trump's record as president), crotch-grabbing, malice toward all, and deep dives into incompetence.  They are the malignant cells, the pall bearers of democracy.   The criminal class  has its cheerleaders.