“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 with Vice President Kamala Harris and his family looking on. He pointed 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.” Joe Biden cautioned America in one of the farewell speeches.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden, like the 39th President Jimmy Carter was a one term president. He demits office with nostalgic memories about a five-decade career in the Senate that started way back in 1972.
Despite personal tragedies, losing his wife and son in an automobile accident, he remained focused on his legislative work, took a train from Delaware to Washington, a two-hour journey to work as a senator of distinction.
Like Carter, whose straightforward humble and simple career was overshadowed by the botched rescue mission of US hostages in Iran at the height of the Islamic revolution, Biden’s initiatives on climate control will be eclipsed by his stuttering support to Israel, inability to put through a cease fire that killed over 50,000 innocent civilians in Gaza, continued military support to Ukraine over tackling crisis in southern border illegal migration and the economic mess.
Doubts over his cognitive functions and mental faculties to occupy the high office he did, his stubbornness not to step down and yield the presidential race came a tad too late for his deputy Kamala Harris to fight a leviathan Trump within a limited time span.
No doubt she did well in a 107 day campaign. . But her inability to dissociate herself with the Biden regime of which she was vice President on the Israel Hamas war, assurances over an alleged failed economy buoying up, the nickname she earned as border Tsar for allowing illegal migration of undocumented workers and support of military aid to Ukraine did her in.
Most democrats will now openly blame Biden for not stepping down early and giving the baton to Harris too late that led to the routing of democrats – they lost their traditional vote banks, the Arab and Palestinian voters, the south Asian voters primarily the Latino and Indian voters, women voters, abortion restoration did not sell, and the economy.
Democrats failed to present a picture that the economy was shattered not by Biden but his predecessor Donald Trump who did not shut down in time during Covid 19 that cost the highest number of deaths at over 500,000 and infected over 50 lakh people. Biden had to struggle with the shattered economy post 
Biden inherited a legacy from Trump, a post pandemic year of mismanagement of the impact of the deadly disease, and the first two years flew by just struggling to pull back the economy. The trio of Biden, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell initiated a tough monetary policy during which they raised interest rates for 52 week to the detriment of investors and Wall Street mandarins and brought a raging inflation down to 2.4% ultimately against the targeted 2% by December 2023.
Jobs increased by 22.1 million over a four-year period adding 60,000 jobs a month, against 40,000 by Trump and 30,000 by Barack Obama during their regimes.
Yet the image projected was that Biden had failed the economy. The democrats focused on threats to democracy from Trump instead of their achievements and the legacy left by trump as the main reasons for the economic mess of the country. Biden projected himself as weak-kneed leader compared to Trump who was literally the elephant in the room attacking him on every front.
Biden had an illustrious career of over five decades at the capitol hill being leader of several key legislative committees, a powerful senator who pushed legislations, eight years as vice president to one of the most successful presidents in recent times in the US in Bill Clinton. Wages were the highest during Clinton’s time at over 21$ an hour and over $40 an hour for health workers. It was the golden period in US history.
When George Bush took over from him defeating his deputy Al Gore, a climate change activist, in a controversial shutdown down of the Florida vote recount by the courts, wages fell to $10 an hour and it is now plunged to $7 an hour forcing most middle-class families to take up two to three jobs to put the kitchen table in order.
It was Dick Cheyney the powerful vice president behind George Bush who virtually ran the republican regime during the time. His daughter Liz Cheney was an articulate Republican and liberal who could sift the chaff from the grain and distinguish between right and wrong. She drew bad blood with Trump while accusing him of false allegations over the 2020 elections being stolen and sat as vice chair in a congressional committee that probed the Jan 06 riots on capitol hill allegedly incited by Trump.
The GOP literally banished her under Trump’s instructions.
Kamala Harris’ public embracing of Liz Cheney sent wrong signals to the Trump supporters who came out in large numbers in swing states to vote against the democrats.
Biden was generally perceived as a good human being by much of the middle classes but not so much by 2% of the ultra-rich community of wealthy barons who paid 2% of taxes and 98% by the middle classes. Biden waived the student loans under the PELTS scheme of incomes below $100,000 of combined incomes of a family. But the courts struck it down, much to the good effort of Biden.
At every stage Biden was defeated by the system of America, ultra capitalism and crony capitalism that sees how much money you have in your pocket over whether the society has got a better deal from the government or the inequities have been reduced. Inequities remain largely untouched.
Biden was frustrated over his Build Back Better initiative which initially involved an outlay of over $1.7 trillion. His own party member Joe Manchin, a strong lobbyist of the fossil fuel lobby, shot it down as well as the Arizona senator Sinema over drought relief. Biden’s budget was trimmed down to $1.2 trillion and the outlays on social welfare and climate change technologies were considerably watered down. Climate change got only $750 billion though it needed much more.
His impetus in terms of subsidies of $3500 to customers buying EVs and $3750 for lithium batteries pushed up sales of EVs and 23 manufacturers have lined up 230 models to be rolled out through 2025 and 2026.
Every time Biden tried to push through his budget, the government faced a shut down that could lead to a furlough of government employees not receiving their wages but working without it to maintain essential services. A bipartisan approach allowed budgets to go through. It cost the republican speaker Kevin McCarthy his job. His successor Mike Smith has had to work double time to push the appropriation bills through. His re-election became a big question for working out deals with democrats to pass the budgets. He won the speakership narrowly getting just 218 to cross the finish line.
Much of Biden’s time was spent fighting the post pandemic era of high costs, the two wars in Ukraine and Israel Hamas war in Gaza, which disrupted the demand supply chains and pushed up the cost of raw materials and imports pushing up the cost of groceries and kitchen table times. It was not Bidenomics that pushed up the cost of groceries but the global meltdown.
In the post pandemic era, fuel prices skyrocketed to $5 a gallon but Biden’s policies and Jerome Power brought it down to $3 .80 a barrel (3.03 litres make a gallon) , though higher than the $2.80 or $3 dollars a barrel pre pandemic.
Like Carter, his fellow mate, Biden will be known for the wrong things and not the right things. Carter became more famous with his peace initiatives around the world bringing stability in an unstable central American country of Nicaragua, he won the Nobel peace prize whilst brokering peace in the middle east bringing warring Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Israel’s Menachem Begin. together in a peace accord.
The peanut farmer died of cancer of the brain while in remission due to old age complications, and scientists opined that use of DDT during his period, later banned, led to his cancer.
One hopes Biden will be better known as Carter for the right things done in his regime rather than unfortunate circumstances during which he had to rule the country with his back to the wall at a time when the world itself was in a meltdown.
As President Joe Biden was laying down office with windup events, delivering farewell speeches to his diplomatic corps, military leaders and the nation at large, his appearances belied a grim reality: This is not how he had hoped his half-century career in Washington would end, the US media observed. Biden leaves office on Monday reluctantly, firm in the view he had more to give and more to accomplish, if less sure his health and vigour would have kept up.
He will bring with him a record of accomplishment but also lingering resentment over the way his political career ended. He no longer speaks regularly with onetime allies who pushed him from the race; many in his party blame him for handing the White House to Donald Trump. And he’ll depart amid a strained relationship with his No. 2 and replacement on the ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris.
DC where he spent his life or over 12 years in positions of power will recede from his view as he retires to his home in Delaware, the capital city is now the domain of his arch-rival Trump, whose return to Washington is the very outcome Biden sought most to prevent. Instead of being remembered as an American statesman who vanquished Trump once and for all, as he thought he had after his 2020 victory, he’ll be seen as an interim president between two administrations led by a man, he once labelled a fascist and a threat to democracy.
“While my term in office is ending, the work continues,” Biden said in a speech to mayors, one of his last public appearances as president. “Your work continues.”
Biden’s single term was an eventful one.
He navigated the country out of a generation-defining pandemic, but with a spike in inflation, fuelled in part by his stimulus spending, which prevented the national mood from fully improving. He ended Trump-era immigration policies he deemed inhumane, but a surge in illegal crossings at the US southern border strained state resources and led to backlash, and he eventually restored many of the same restrictions.
His decision to end the nation’s longest war meant he is the first president in decades not to hand the Afghanistan conflict to his successor. But the withdrawal was deadly and chaotic, and left many Americans questioning his competence. It left more than to be desired. The Taliban quickly overran Kabul and took over and the American military arsenal left behind was taken over by them before the US army could take them back.
US alliances were restored through common cause when Russia invaded Ukraine. But the war grinds on, without a clear endgame. In the Middle East, an eleventh-hour ceasefire was struck in Gaza in exchange for hostages, but he must begrudgingly share credit with Trump for getting the deal finished.
New investments in American infrastructure and manufacturing have created thousands of new jobs and invigorated new industries. But even in Biden’s own telling, the benefits of his record won’t be borne out for years to come.
He restored a degree of normalcy to the presidency after Trump’s norm-busting years but ignored public sentiment about his advanced age and broke a pledge by pardoning his son, Hunter.
‘The seeds are planted’
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., who arrived in Washington as the nation’s youngest senator in 1972 and leaves as the country’s oldest president, hopes the history books remember the positives and buff out the negatives from his White House tenure once his policies take hold and Americans can reap the benefits of his many accomplishments.
“It will take time to feel the full impact of all we’ve done together. But the seeds are planted, and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come,” he said Wednesday evening during a 19-minute farewell address from the Oval Office.
The speech surprised many Biden allies for what it was not: a laundry list of accomplishments to burnish a one-term legacy. Instead, Biden used much of his remarks to warn against a burgeoning “tech-industrial complex,” run by oligarchs and eroding democratic institutions. (Critics noted that Biden and his fellow Democrats have long relied on the financial support of billionaires, including from Silicon Valley and Wall Street.)
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking about his place in the ranks of America’s 45 other presidents. In the waning days of his presidency, Biden is awash in sentiment, mindful of his legacy. He has taken a flurry of executive actions to try cementing his agenda before Trump’s arrival, including on the environment, immigration and foreign affairs. He’s issued dozens of pardons and thousands of commutations and is still weighing whether to grant pre-emptive pardons to some political allies who may face prosecution in the new Trump era.
“He’s forever frustrated we didn’t tell a good enough story about what the administration did,” a senior White House official told CNN. “His grievance is about not getting his due.”
Allies argue history will look more favourably on his presidency as the policies he put in motion bear fruit. “I think historians are not going to be dealing with sound bites and whether or not you mangled a preposition or phrase,” Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina) told CNN. “They’re going to deal with the substance, and on substance, I think you’re going to find that Joe Biden is going to be treated very, very well.”
What’s left unmentioned, at least directly to Biden, are his own shortcomings as a communicator and the possibility that he could’ve boosted his legacy — and his party’s chance at victory — by foregoing his re-election bid or ending it much sooner than he did.
Biden and his family remain stung that so many of their Democratic friends, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seemed to abandon Biden after his botched debate against Trump in June.
“Let’s just say I was disappointed with how it unfolded,” first lady Jill Biden told the Washington Post this week. “I learned a lot about human nature.” Since the November election, Biden has privately suggested to some friends and allies that he believes he could have defeated Trump had some party leaders not pushed him aside. A Democratic lawmaker said the president also made the comment during a holiday party at the White House in a moment that was “awkward and clearly misguided,” the lawmaker said.
This year, Biden also began sharing those thoughts aloud, telling USA Today in an exit interview: “It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes, based on the polling.” The polling, of course, showed no such thing.
Tensions with Harris
Every time Biden says he could have beaten Trump, it’s a fresh reminder that Harris did not, which has added fresh tension to an already complicated relationship between the two in the waning days of their White House partnership.
“It’s a sign of disrespect whether he intends it or not,” a former Harris adviser told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak openly about the frayed dynamic between the two and many of their longtime loyalists. 
Biden hasn’t intended his comments to be viewed that way, aides say, and has not openly criticized Harris or the campaign she ran. Yet his comments, made repeatedly, have nonetheless rubbed many Democrats the wrong way.
After the USA Today interview was published last week, Biden and Harris had a conversation about his comments about the election, two people familiar with the matter said. Two days later, Biden slightly adjusted his language when asked by reporters about whether he truly believed he could have defeated Trump.
“I think I would have beaten Trump, could’ve beaten Trump,” Biden said. “I think Kamala could have beaten Trump, would have beaten Trump.”
It was an answer that still infuriated some advisers and admirers of Harris, who went to great lengths to demonstrate her loyalty to Biden by not criticizing or distancing herself from him during her 107-day presidential campaign.
“She was loyal to her detriment,” a separate former Harris adviser said, also speaking on condition of anonymity because the vice president has urged her associates to treat Biden with grace as he leaves office.
But his words have rocketed around message groups and conversations, particularly his chosen language when asked whether Harris should run again in 2028 for the Democratic nomination.
“I think she’s competent to run again in four years,” Biden told reporters late last week. “That’d be a decision for her to make.”
For her part, Harris has stood by the president’s side — in the Cross Hall, as Biden announced a Middle East ceasefire deal, and seated in the Oval Office, just a few paces away from the Resolute Desk, as he delivered a farewell primetime address to the nation.
A senior Democratic adviser who is close to Biden and Harris said their relationship “is just fine,” but was naturally complicated when she returned to the White House after being the candidate. The adviser compared the dynamic to Al Gore and Bill Clinton in the closing days of their time together.
“Stepping back into the No. 2 role is always hard,” the Democratic adviser said. “Trump makes it even harder.”
Several Democratic leaders, including members of Congress, said they were eager for the party and the country to move on from the painful election losses of 2024.
“It’s over now, so it kind of doesn’t really matter, does it?” said Democratic Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California. “This is our reality, and we have to move forward. I’m not even thinking about any of that.”
Rep. Summer Lee, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said there was little to gain by focusing on the president’s comments or the historic Biden-to-Harris candidate swap last summer.
“I find it doesn’t quite matter what Biden thinks he could have done or couldn’t have done. Or anybody else,” Lee told CNN. “What’s the point of focusing on it? Would, could, should. We lost the election.”
In some ways, how Harris and Biden have spent their final days in the White House reflect the divergent paths they will take once they are no longer serving alongside one another.
Biden, after serving in public office for the better part of the past half-century, will enter private life having recently become a great-grandfather. His focus will turn, in part, to raising the millions of dollars needed to build a presidential library. He is likely to author a new book. 
“I’m not going to be out of sight or out of mind,” Biden told reporters last week, though how he plans to make his voice heard in the months and years after departing office is unknown.
Harris, 22 years Biden’s junior, faces a different set of decisions. Few believe her political career to be over; after an evaluation period she could potentially launch a 2026 bid for California governor — or even make another run for the presidency in 2028.
“It is not in my nature to go quietly into the night,” she told staffers as she signed her desk at the White House, a tradition stretching back decades. “So don’t worry about that.”
Source : Inputs from CNN, NBC, USA Today and Washington Post.
Contributor, IANS - Washington DC/New York
Executive Editor, Corporate Tycoons - Pune, India
Executive Editor, The Flag Post - Bengaluru, India
Contributor, The Statesman, Hindu Business Line, Sarkaritel.com, Diplomacyindia.com
Former Economics Editor, PTI - New Delhi, India
Former Communications Advisor,
Alstom Group of Companies, SA - France/Belgium
