Analysis: President Biden's farewell speech comes too late for many Americans

Candy Woodall, Baltimore Sun on Jan 15, 2025

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President Joe Biden’s farewell speech Wednesday night came too late for many Americans, including members of his Democratic Party who wanted him to step aside before the primary.

The doggedness that marked Biden’s early congressional career, with him becoming known as a widowed dad traveling home every night on Amtrak to be with his sons, ultimately became his undoing. Just as he frequently said “there is nothing America can’t do if we do it together,” he seemed to believe his own tenacity was infinite. It took a June 27 debate against Donald Trump to expose his limitations, a performance so disastrous in the eyes of voters that much of the party’s top brass leaned on him to end his reelection bid.

Despite more than 50 years in public service, including leading the country out of a pandemic and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure as president, he will likely be judged by his opponent’s effective messaging in the 2024 election that painted him as too old, tone-deaf to the impact of inflation and the owner of record-high illegal immigration.

One of Biden’s biggest challenges in his first term and truncated reelection bid was an inability to convince a majority of Americans of his accomplishments. That’s partially because some of his accomplishments had a huge downside. For example, he ended the country’s longest war, but his Afghanistan withdrawal was largely considered a disaster. He made a $1 trillion investment in America’s roads, bridges and infrastructure system, but it will take years for that work to come to fruition.

Biden on Wednesday seemed to acknowledge he can’t beat the clock anymore.

“You know, 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,” Biden said during his address from the Oval Office at the White House.

But his speech, about 15 minutes long, looked forward more than it was reflective. He warned of concentrated wealth and power. He also championed America’s promise.

“An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” he said.

His words seemed to be a nod to Trump and the billionaire tech moguls lining up behind him. That includes Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who’s leading the new Department of Government Efficiency, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose companies have each given $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.

Biden also used his exit speech to raise alarms about misinformation.

“Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power,” the outgoing president said. “The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.”

Though Biden’s theme in the sunset of his presidency has been to warn of the nation’s perils, as he did in a letter Wednesday morning, he finished his speech focusing on what he has celebrated throughout his 52 years in public office — the promise and possibility of America.

“I’ve always believed — and I’ve told other world leaders — America can be defined by one word: possibilities,” Biden said. “Only in America do we believe anything is possible, like a kid with a stutter of modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, sitting behind this desk in the Oval Office as president of the United States. That’s the magic of America. It’s all around us.”

Biden ran for president in 2020 to preserve that magic, saying he wanted to “save the soul of America.” He believed he was the only Democrat who could defeat Trump, and he did that year.

Four years later, despite polls and public sentiment that suggested otherwise, he still believed he was the only Democrat who could win on a ballot against Trump. It was perhaps the first time in Biden’s long life and career that quitting early may have spared his legacy.

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