With His Farewell Speech, Joe Biden Fulfills His Destiny as Barack Obama’s True Heir

On Wednesday night, President Joseph R. Biden addressed the nation in a prerecorded statement, bemoaning the influence of the “oligarchy” and its threat to American democracy.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, the freedoms, and the fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said in his final address to the nation. “Social media is giving up on fact-checking. AI could spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work, and how we protect our nation.”

READ MORE: WATCH: Biden Gives Train Wreck Farewell Speech, Goes Ron Burgundy Again and Rants Aimlessly

There is no noticeable attempt to defend his legacy. No attempt to talk about how America has changed under his leadership. There is only a dire warning about the state of democracy.

With his farewell address, Biden cements himself as the true heir of the legacy of Barack Obama: a man whose pride decimated his own party and ushered in an era of Republican control and a Donald Trump presidency.

Democrats Left in Shambles

Between 2008 and 2016, Barack Obama was the de facto leader of his party. He reshaped it to his specifications, cobbling together a diverse but self-polarizing collection of various demographic groups, all of whom had their own demands of the Democratic Party. The problem for the party? That was Obama’s coalition, not theirs.

As a result, the party as a whole could not unite them when Obama wasn’t on the ballot. The 2008 and 2014 midterms were devastating, and the final blow came in 2016 when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the presidency.

READ MORE: Barack Obama: The Man Behind the Democrats’ Biden Dilemma

From the above link, a bit of what I wrote about Obama back in July:

Obama’s policies decimated Rust Belt jobs in particular. The blue collar middle class had had it with him and his team. After two devastating midterm cycles and barely squeaking by in his own reelection, Obama left office as the head of a party that had suffered more losses than at any point in history.

And, it was when he was about to leave office that he decided to look at potential successors and decide that Hillary Clinton was the best pick. He convinced Biden to stand down and endorsed Clinton. After all, imagine how great his legacy would look if he hand-picked the first female president!

Voters, angry at Obama’s arrogance and his policies, voted for the most unlikely of presidential candidates, Donald J. Trump.

The result was the absolute devastation of the Democratic Party. Few Democrats publicly acknowledged how much the party had shrunk by the end of Obama’s second term, but the data was there: “When Obama took office, there were 60 Democratic senators; now there are 46,” NPR wrote at the time. “The number of House seats held by Democrats has shrunk from 257 to 188. There are now nine fewer Democratic governors than in 2009. Democrats currently hold fewer elected offices nationwide than at any time since the 1920s.”

Pride Before the Fall

Fast forward to 2024.

Joe Biden was losing from the start of the year. There was seemingly no polling, internal or external, that showed him ahead. He struggled throughout the year, but it wasn’t until the disastrous debate that the Democrats started really paying attention. Despite that, Biden lingered in the race for a month, convinced he was capable of beating Trump, and at times absolutely positive the polls were wrong.

He stayed in the race until it was pretty much beyond too late to exit, then exited anyway and handed Kamala Harris a broken campaign and no chance to recover. Even with a billion dollars in campaign donations, she struggled the entire way through. To be as fair to her as possible, she was always kept at arm’s length by the Biden team, and she never really had a chance to learn on the job (though there are multiple reports through the years alleging she never even tried to learn).

Biden chose to withdraw from Afghanistan against the advice of his generals. He chose to ignore economists in his own party warning that a massive COVID bailout would jack up inflation. He chose to push a green agenda at the expense of the economy. He chose to put in place people who were farther to the left than most Americans. All because he felt like he was smarter than everyone else.

At least Obama had a pedigree to prove his intelligence. Joe Biden was well past his prime for decades, and he had at no point proven he was a particularly clever man.

The polls were right back in early 2024 and in the summer of 2024. The polls now prove it: CNN’s last approval poll for Biden shows him with absolutely soul-crushing numbers.

Overall, 36% of US adults say they approve of the way Biden handled the presidency, matching his previous low mark in CNN polling during his term, with even fewer rating his performance positively on immigration (31%), foreign affairs (32%) or the economy (33%). His strongest issues in terms of approval ratings still prompt net-negative results, with less than half saying they approve of the way he protected American democracy (46%), handled environmental policy (44%) or dealt with health care policies (43%).

Biden’s favorability rating, a measure of personal feelings rather than job performance, stands at 33% favorable to 58% unfavorable, just one point off his previous low in CNN polling since he became vice president under Barack Obama in 2009 (he reached that 32% in June 2023). His favorability rating has been mired in the low 30s for much of the past two years.

Biden leave office in what should be disgrace, not that he will ever admit that, nor will his party. But the Democrats are in as much trouble now as they were in 2016. Sure, their ranks are more robust than they were in 2016, but their position is the same: They are the minority party and the Republican in charge of the opposition is Trump.

The Heir Apparent?

Biden’s pride and his utter disregard for his party have left the Democrats reeling, much like his boss of eight years, the previous Democrat in charge of the White House. Had Biden ever had a sense of humility, he might have left his party with a fighting chance. Harris may never have had a chance of winning, but Democrats could have retaken the House and kept the Senate closer. But because Biden dragged his party down with him, the party was humiliated in November.

There is no apparent heir to the White House for the Democrats. Harris proved (as she did in 2020) that she is incapable of running for the job, much less doing it. No one from the Biden administration (like Pete Buttigieg) is any less radioactive.

The Democrats have four years to find an heir to reunite the party. And they should probably get on that soon, because as much as much as people like to focus on the infighting in the Republican Party, the Democrats are more divided now than ever.

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