I feel bad about this because several good people did defend the principle that an employee's personal views should be allowed to remain purely personal, that we should be able to get along in society even with those who we are vehemently opposed to in the political sphere.

I worry that this will now be seen as a defeat for that principle, as proof that your political views will be held against you if you become prominent enough, and given the data trails that we all leave behind us, that could get ugly. Some (but not all!) of the people who campaigned for him to quit were themselves dismissive of this principle, and if they 'won' then I can't really say I'm happy about it.

EDIT: clarity