Joe Biden—a fixture of American civic life for more than half a century—sat behind the Resolute Desk. He looked as though he were from another time,
Joe Biden—a fixture of American civic life for more than half a century—sat behind the Resolute Desk. He looked as though he were from another time, describing an America that now seems to exist mostly in platitudes. “The America of our dreams,” he said toward the end of his farewell address Wednesday evening, “is always closer than we think.”
Meanwhile, an American nightmare is brewing: Donald Trump, the man he’d campaigned against as an “existential threat” to democracy, is waiting in the wings to succeed him—with unified control of government in Washington, and newly empowered by the very system he sought to overthrow four years ago.
The president’s Bidenisms—about the “soul of America,” the “magic of America,” its “peril and possibility”—seemed slight and idle against the dangers of this political moment, some of which he warned about in his 17-minute primetime address: the “oligarchy…taking shape in America,” the climate crisis, AI and the “tech-industrial complex.” But Biden failed to fully confront “these powerful forces” during his own presidency; his every “we need to…” Wednesday rang especially hollow at the dawn of a up-to-date administration that has no interest in reforming the conservative Supreme Court, limiting the executive authority Trump himself has pushed to expand, and tackling the “concentration of power and wealth.” Make billionaires “pay their fair share?” The incoming president is a billionaire, and his right-hand man is the richest man on the planet.
Biden, of course, was making a pitch for the ages, encouraging a long view of history and his legacy. But it’s one that was complicated by some of his own policy decisions, particularly his unwavering support for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and his history-altering decision to run for a second term that he has even admitted he may not have been able to finish.
The huge news in Biden’s speech was the ceasefire deal Israel and Hamas agreed to earlier in the day. “This plan was developed and negotiated by my team,” he said at the top of his remarks, “and it will be largely implemented by the incoming administration.”
But Trump claimed the win, too. “This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November,” he wrote. Trump was the “10 cents missing from the dollar,” a US official told Axios—and after announcing the deal earlier in the day, Biden was asked by a reporter if the president-elect deserved any credit: “Is that a joke?” Biden replied.
However the delicate agreement might have come about—it appeared to be in danger of breaking Thursday morning, after Israel accused Hamas of creating a “last-minute crisis” and delayed a Cabinet vote to approve it—the Israel-Hamas war will surely be a defining aspect of Biden’s legacy. His capitulation to Benjamin Netanyahu, who defied him at every turn, undermined the strength and American leadership the foreign policy-minded president sought to project on the world stage. His seeming detachment, oftentimes, from the scale of the death and suffering in Gaza—and his reflexive hostility to formal international condemnations of Netanyahu’s siege—betrayed his political identity as the “empathizer-in-chief.” And his handling of the crisis—both the policy and the politics of it—was likely an albatross for his reelection campaign.
Kamala Harris might have been able to shake free of the burden—had she been more willing to break with Biden. But she mostly refused to do so. Biden hasn’t exactly returned her loyalty: Since his vice president’s defeat, he has repeatedly insisted that he could have prevailed over Trump: “I really thought I had the best chance of beating him,” Biden told USA Today in an exit interview last week, even as he conceded that he may not have been able to serve at “85, 86 years old”—the age he’d be at the end of his second term. That has apparently frustrated Harris, showcasing what some close to her described to the Wall Street Journal as Biden’s “one-sided loyalty.”
In his Oval Office address Wednesday night, Biden praised Harris as a “great partner,” and wished the “incoming administration success”: “I want America to succeed,” Biden said. He invoked the Statue of Liberty—a monument to American ideals whose endurance stands in stark contrast to the ephemeral nature of the presidency—and recounted the story of the man whose job was to climb its “torch and polish the amber pains so rays of light could reach out as far as possible.” Biden hopes his legacy will be that of the “keeper of the flame.” But it casts dim lightweight right now into the coming darkness, as he prepares to turn power back over to Trump.
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