The most amazing thing back then was there was NO OUTRAGE and NO POLITICAL price to pay. Today, it will only be OUTRAGE but no political price will be paid.
I'm not sure. There were changes. Mass. got some Republican Governors, the USA got Reagan and R control of both the house and senate. Some of this surely was just normal people being fed up with the excesses of the leftist dominated Democratic control of everything.
As for busing, there were both intended and unitended consequences. It drove the final nail in the coffins of some cities. People moved out of entire counties, like Detroit and Wayne County to avoid it, turning what might have survived as a poly-racial city with various ethnic neighborhoods (ie: the way Detroit was from about 1850 on) to a homogenous one-race one-class (lower) hole, that we all know and love today.
In Boston the opposition got to the point of fire bombing busses. I don't think anyone was every charged in that. You make your bed and you lie in it to sleep.