As most outgoing Presidents are wont to do - since Washington set the tone - President Joe Biden issued a formal Farewell Address to the nation, pointing out his term's successes and making dire warnings about what lays ahead (via Chris Megerian, Zeke Miller, and Colleen Long at AP News):
President Joe Biden used his farewell address to the nation Wednesday to deliver stark warnings about an “oligarchy” of the ultra-wealthy taking root in the country and a “tech-industrial complex” that is infringing on Americans’ rights and the future of democracy.
Speaking from the Oval Office as he prepares to hand over power Monday to President-elect Donald Trump, Biden seized what is likely to be his final opportunity to address the country before he departs the White House to spotlight the accumulation of power and wealth in the U.S. among just a small few.
“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said, drawing attention to “a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked...”
Biden’s speech in the Oval Office is the latest in a series of remarks on domestic policy and foreign relations he has delivered that are intended to cement his legacy and reshape Americans’ grim views on his term. Earlier in the day, he heralded a long awaited ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which could end more than a year of bloodshed in the Middle East.
“It’ll take time to feel the full impact of what we’ve done together but the seeds are planted and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come,” Biden said. It was a tacit acknowledgement that many Americans say they have yet to feel the impact of his trillions of dollars spent on domestic initiatives...
Biden offered his own set of solutions for the problems that he laid out: change the tax code to ensure billionaires “pay their fair share,” eliminate the flow of hidden sources of money into political campaigns, establish 18-year term limits for members of the Supreme Court and ban members of Congress from trading stocks. His policy prescriptions come as his political capital is at its nadir as Biden prepares to exit the national stage, and after he has done little to advance those causes during his four years in power at the White House...
That last sentence aptly defines what could prove to be Biden's legacy: Both the long-term accomplishments he focused on working to rebuild the economy post-COVID and post-trump, and the frustration at letting too many needed reforms go pass. ALL of those things that Biden offered as solutions - especially the needed caps on campaign financing and on judicial overreach and corruption - were things HIS OWN administration could have worked on during the brief window of opportunity 2021 to 2023 when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.
To this, I would point to Professor James David Barber's cheat sheet of Presidential Character. Where Biden falls on that spectrum - Passive-Positive - explains a lot about the lack of energy or focus when working on extensive and radical reforms. Passives are the type that don't want to "rock the boat" too hard and shake off any support from the more extreme elements of their own coalitions (and are willing to work with opponents thinking everyone's all in one big happy Starfleet); while the Positive trait of seeing the powers of high office as a good thing for the public can blind such Presidents from the need to stop corruption in government. Such Congeniality wouldn't be a problem in times of normalcy: However, we are in the Age of trump, where lies and greed are the coins of the realm, and Biden exposed himself to attacks he couldn't overcome.
This is why Passive-Positives preside over either administrations of high corruption or low energy. The good news is that Biden's personal incorruptibility - in spite of the MAGA accusations that he's corrupt like his son Hunter - drove him to surround himself with good people who did their jobs. This keeps him from getting grouped with the likes of U.S. Grant (who failed to surround himself with good people) and Warren Harding (who happily surrounded himself with corrupt friends) and Ronald Reagan (who may not have been fully aware of his regime's corruption but allowed it to happen). Biden falls in with the likes of William Taft: Who rose to power during a Progressive reformist wave and served a relatively scandal-free term, but failed to capitalize on more economic reforms and corporate regulations that were needed in that era.
As a side note, this is where Barber's Character chart of creating four major traits falls apart in the specific successes and failures of each presidency. Not all Active-Positive Presidents behave the same way, nor do Passive-Positives or Active-Negatives (there have been too few Passive-Negatives to make that observation). Even within each Character there seems to be two types: With Passive-Positives there's the type that presides over corruption because they don't want to lose friends (Appeasers) or the type that doesn't want to push harder on things that need doing (Slackers) because they feared the risks (something Actives never worry about).
Biden ended up as a Slacker President, trying to focus on big-menu items like job growth and infrastructure but unwilling to press harder on major crises such as trump's lawlessness and foreign wars/interventions such as Ukraine (where Biden's fear of Putin's nuclear retaliation paralyzed our support efforts to Zelensky) and Gaza (even as Biden claims success with a ceasefire, it took too many months and too many innocent Palestinian lives to get here).
Because of Biden's inability to see trump as a genuine and ongoing threat to American democracy and political well-being - and because he feared falling into the accusations of dictatorship if they pursued trump's criminality - he didn't push too hard - and hired a like-minded Attorney General in Merrick Garland who also didn't press the need - to see trump held accountable for his actions on January 6th. That delay cost us dearly: It allowed trump to campaign again and use his gaslighting and denials to escape justice, and return to power with a vengeance (literally).
Biden's administration is going to be less remembered for the accomplishments he did achieve - especially a key infrastructure bill that should improve local manufacturing and job growth for the next 20 years - and more remembered for all the missed opportunities to end global threats like Putin and greedhead threats like Elon Musk. He'll be among the ranks of the recently passed Jimmy Carter: A Good man who didn't exactly do a Great job.
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