This may seem improbable after a roller-coaster election that has seen Americans unseat Donald Trump and appoint an elderly but unobjectionable Democrat as the 46th president of the United States, but the events of the past week may just have produced the best possible outcome for the Republican Party. Why so? First, Biden and the Democrats have received the feeblest of mandates . Hopes of a sweeping “blue wave” repudiation of Trump have been crushed. Dreams of a strong liberalising agenda have been rudely interrupted, much to the relief of most of the country’s conservatives. The resilience of support for a conservative agenda, in spite of egregious abuse by Trump , and his administration’s disastrous management of the Covid-19 pandemic that is still killing 1,000 Americans a day, will be a source of comfort and relief. Whether and how they move on from Trump will be critical as attention turns to elections in 2024. It is clear that despite Trump’s defeat, the Republican Party did rather well: it has a good shot at retaining control of the Senate, and added seats in the House of Representatives. A Senate majority will mean the new Biden administration will need to go cap in hand for Republican approval with every policy proposal. Even before this humbling process begins, Biden is going to need Republican endorsement of everyone he puts forward to join his new government. The firebrands expected to join Biden’s cabinet will be left on the margins, along with the radical Democratic agenda they espouse. Biden’s “Build Back Better” proposal is likely to lose its Green New Deal, plans for a US$15-an-hour minimum wage, proposed higher taxes for the wealthy, a big new fiscal stimulus, and larger budgets for state governments. Forget reshaping the strongly-Republican Supreme Court . Republicans will undoubtedly claim credit for this “restraint”. A Biden administration might win Republican agreement on new infrastructure spending, industry policy initiatives to strengthen areas of key strategic importance, tough anti-trade measures, and the scapegoating of China . Biden will be allowed to revive a policy of civilised diplomacy and conditional re-engagement with multilateral institutions such as Nato, the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization – even though it will be huge domestic challenges that dominate the government’s time and energy. He may even be encouraged to rejoin what used to be the Trans-Pacific Partnership , and the Paris accord on climate change. But those concerned about moves against the fossil fuel industry, or new funding to support solar and wind power or electric cars, are likely to rest easy. Republicans will also be quietly gleeful that the 46th US president is set to face the gruelling challenges of calming deep social discord, managing the Covid-19 pandemic and the deep recession it has created, and finding a way to bring national debt back under control after more than a decade of quantitative easing . Biden’s team faces the prospect of having to park its own ambitious vision for reform while it hunkers down to the thankless task of helping a deeply divided nation through what is arguably the most difficult period in the past century. Blame for failure or shortcomings will sit with the hapless Democrats, with Republicans aiming to ride blamelessly back into power in 2024 on a condemnation of the Democratic performance. Trump’s awful mismanagement of the pandemic and the economic harm it has caused will be long forgotten. The bigger challenge for the Republican Party will be how – or whether – it is able to purge its Trump legacy. The electoral failure to emphatically repudiate Trump should ring alarm bells. As the Financial Times ’ Janan Ganesh noted: “Not enough Americans regard him as a tyrant or a klutz, or care either way.” Trump may have come to grief this week, but the grievances and paranoias that have forged and maintained his core remain as strong – and as dangerous – as ever. In theory, Trump’s defeat provides what many would regard as a profoundly welcome opportunity to purge such a venal and divisive spirit from the Republican Party, but whether this will happen is far from clear. With Trump loyalists such as Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley already flagging interest in a presidential run in 2024 – not to mention Ivanka Trump and Mike Pompeo – the Trump legacy seems to have a lot of life left in it yet, and great potential still to traumatise the Republican Party in the next four years. Fractious US election heralds more chaos in a polarised world Meanwhile, a perplexed and anxious world outside can only look on. If there is comfort, it is that despite Trump’s best efforts to discredit the workings of the world’s most respected democracy, the integrity of the electoral process seems intact. If the election was a test of national character, it looks likely that the US will pass – if only just. In the legal actions of the coming months, there is still potential for fresh discredit. If the democratic process is supposed to be superior to any other in delivering effective governments that are generally regarded as legitimate, then the past four years of US democracy has raised awkward questions. These need to be addressed if the forces of populism and authoritarianism worldwide are to be held in check. There will also be comfort internationally in the likely return of the US administration to civilised diplomacy . The return of a pragmatic respect for reasonable difference will be welcome. But US standing in the world has been harmed and there will be hopes that despite Biden’s frustratingly equivocal mandate, he and his team will slowly be able to reverse that. Biden’s reputation for seeking reconciliation “across the aisle” with Republican opponents could play a pivotal role here. With a close eye on 2024, and their self-interest, there could be many Republicans who see opportunity in forging a constructive relationship with a Biden administration. For many Republicans, it may be better to be out of power, keeping an otherwise-radical Democratic administration on a leash, than in power and taking the blame for the economic and social harm that Trump has inflicted over the past four years. David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view