On Wednesday, Joe Biden gave a farewell address to the nation. If you missed it, you’re not alone. Biden has been drifting off into the history books with startling rapidity, his presidency already reduced to a footnote between Trumpian chapters, his person diminished to the point of irrelevancy.

As usual, Biden’s message was spot-on. Channeling Eisenhower and his warning of the rise of an unaccountable “military-industrial” complex, the outgoing president warned that America today is increasingly under the sway of the oligarchs spawned by a “tech-industrial complex.” These oligarchs, Biden noted, are using the high-tech infrastructure they control to corrode the public discourse, to confuse the public as to what is truth and what is falsehood, and to deliberately promote misinformation, all so that they can harvest more power and more wealth.

Elon Musk’s personal fortune now stands at close to half a trillion dollars. Given the speed at which it is growing, he stands to become the world’s first trillionaire in the not-too-distant future, with his business empire controlling everything from the cars of the future to the satellites vital to civilian and military infrastructure globally. That makes him a one-man superpower in his own right. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t far behind him.

Cumulatively, Trump’s cabinet and inner circle of billionaires is by far the wealthiest leadership cohort in the country’s history, blending economic muscle and political clout in a quintessentially oligarchal manner. These men and women, some inside government, some simply cheerleading from the box seats in which they sit to enjoy the show, will, over the coming years, use political power to beget more economic power, and then turn around to use their economic power to consolidate their hold over the political process.

As I said, Biden’s message was spot-on. After all, one can’t look at Musk’s outsize, and entirely destructive, current public role, his trolling of leaders around the world, his embrace of neo-Nazi politics, and not shudder. One can’t look at Zuckerberg’s craven embrace of Trump’s “If I say it, it’s true” philosophy, as well as his hosting of inauguration day parties feting Trump, and not be horrified at the tech titan’s reincarnation as an enthusiastic midwife to fascism. But Biden’s message, delivered in the hard-to-hear monotone that has come to define his image, no longer carries weight; the public has long since tuned the man out.

And here’s where I get really angry. Joe Biden had exactly one job when he assumed office after the 2020 election, and that was to craft a politics capable of neutralizing the MAGA movement and all of the extremism spewing forth from its leader’s mouth. He had one job: to do everything in his power to make sure that Donald J. Trump could never again get within a mile of power and could never again use the power of the presidency to launch a full-on assault on American democracy. And Biden screwed that up. Not by a little bit, but in a volcanic eruption of incompetence. He failed again and again and again to sell his message, and, when it was clear the public wasn’t buying what he was selling, he then failed to step aside in a timely manner to give another Democrat a viable chance of winning against a resurgent Trump.

Current Issue

May 2026 Issue

It represents one of the most staggering displays of political malpractice in the history of democratic nations; and it’s one that I dearly hope the history books hold Biden, who reportedly cares monumentally for his “legacy,” and his small circle of trusted confidants to account for.

One hundred years from now, I doubt anyone’s going to remember the Inflation Reduction Act, but they sure as hell are going to remember Biden’s late-Weimar dance-of-ineptitude as the forces of darkness gathered to storm America’s citadel of power. Because come January 20, Trump will have pretty much unlimited power, thanks to the Supreme Court, and at the same time he will have a high-tech praetorian guard of social media tycoons magnifying his every word and attacking anyone who dares to stand in his way.

So although Biden is absolutely right to warn of an impending oligarchy, he was wrong not to apologize for dumping the country in the mess it is now in. Where was the humility, the acknowledgement of simply unfathomable political missteps over the past years?

Speaking of Democrats who aren’t exactly standing on the side of decency or building a firewall against extremism, where are the senior party figures who are willing to absent themselves from an inauguration that will crown a would-be-tyrant, a convicted felon, a sexual abuser, as an unfettered, above-the-law president? To my knowledge, only Michelle Obama has had the courage to absent herself from a ceremony in which a lawless man will swear to protect and defend constitutional government. Her husband, Barack Obama, last seen making animated small talk with Trump at Jimmy Carter’s funeral, will attend. So, too, will Bill and Hillary Clinton. It’s an extraordinary act of legitimization for a man who has repeatedly spread blatant lies or falsehoods about, not to mention threatened to imprison, or worse, these same leaders who are now pledging to attend his ceremony, and whose supporters would likely have gone on a violent spree had he lost the election in November.

Am I angry? Hell yes. The country is about to be handed over to a band of fascists and oligarchs; and top Democrats, feckless beyond even my own most pessimistic expectations, are rolling over and waiting for the Republicans to tickle their tummies instead of standing up for the concept of a pluralist, rationalist, empathic body politic.

It’s MLK Day on Monday, a day when we generally pay homage to our pantheon of extraordinary progressive, radical men and women who have moved this country along the arc of justice in the profoundest of ways, even when confronted with the harshest forms of repression. This MLK Day, I will be resolutely ignoring the bleak news of the inauguration, and I will most certainly be ignoring those Democratic leaders who are making nice with a man whom, less than three months ago, they correctly identified as a fascist. Instead, I will be thinking of America’s better angels, and hoping that a new generation of Democratic leaders soon emerges with the wherewithal to push back against the Trump juggernaut.