In a sombre farewell speech on Wednesday, Joe Biden expressed concern that America was falling into the hands of an ‘oligarchy’, targeting Donald Trump and the tech multi-billionaires now lining up behind him.
It was a far cry from the ‘optimism’ professed by the outgoing president over the last four years, during this short address of less than twenty minutes, delivered at prime time behind the Oval Office.
‘I want to warn the country about some things that worry me greatly’, said the 82-year-old Democrat, five days before handing over power to his biggest rival, the Republican president-elect.
‘It's about the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-rich people’ and the “dangerous consequences if their power is allowed to go unchecked”, he said.
‘An oligarchy is taking shape in America’ and it “poses a real threat to our entire democracy and to our basic rights and freedoms”, continued Joe Biden, in an obvious reference to billionaire Donald Trump and the wealthy tech bosses, foremost among them Elon Musk.
He spoke of the emergence of a ‘technology-industrial complex’ with immense power, echoing former President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address in 1961, when he warned of the rise of the ‘military-industrial complex’.
The boss of Tesla, SpaceX and X, a staunch and vocal ally of the president-elect, as well as Jeff Bezos (Amazon, Blue Origin) and Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) will attend Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday, according to NBC.
These ‘three people now own more wealth than the poorest half of American society’, Bernie Sanders, a left-wing figure in the United States, protested on Tuesday.
‘Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation that allows the abuse of power’, deplored Joe Biden, calling for social networks to be made “accountable” and for “safeguards” to be put in place on artificial intelligence.
The ‘concentration of wealth and power (...) undermines our sense of unity and the common good’, said the 46th President of the United States, who was surrounded by members of his family.
He also expressed alarm at the ‘powerful forces’ that would like to ‘eliminate the measures we have taken to tackle the climate crisis’.
These very strong warnings took a back seat in his speech to the desire to defend his record, in particular the launch of gigantic investment plans and the restoration of the United States' major international alliances.
When he hands back to his Republican rival on Monday the keys to the White House, which he took from him after a hard-fought battle four years ago, the 82-year-old Democrat will experience a huge humiliation.
In 2019, Joe Biden said that Donald Trump would ‘go down in history as a passing aberration’.
But it is his presidency that currently stands out as an anomaly, or the final hiccup of a bygone era, in a country shaken by violent political, cultural and economic change.
Joe Biden was sworn in a fortnight after Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol, refusing to acknowledge their champion's defeat in the presidential election.
An unpopular president, he has never been able to dispel concerns about his age or counter the appeal of Donald Trump's populist rhetoric.
Only 36% of Americans have a positive view of his presidency and 33% have a favourable opinion of him, according to a poll published on Wednesday by CNN.
While Joe Biden left his successor a legacy of robust growth and very low unemployment, for American households his term in office was synonymous with a sharp rise in the cost of living.
The Democratic president had decided in the spring of 2023 to stand again against Donald Trump, but withdrew from the race in July, handing over to Vice-President Kamala Harris, who was soundly defeated on 5 November.
Concluding his speech, at the end of fifty years of political life, Joe Biden said to his compatriots: ‘It's your turn to stand guard’.
With AFP.
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