Outgoing President Prepares to Explain Why His Legacy Looks Nothing Like His Campaign Promises
The Speech That Explains Nothing While Claiming Everything
Joe Biden is apparently preparing a final presidential address where he’ll attempt to explain his legacy to the American people. This should be interesting, considering his legacy looks less like ‘building back better’ and more like ‘maintaining the status quo while pretending it’s progressive change.’ His speech will probably be heavy on rhetoric and light on actual accomplishments.
The core of Biden’s presidency was built on the promise that he’d undo Trump’s damage and create something better. What actually happened was more like rearranging deck chairs on a ship that’s still sinking, then telling everyone ‘Look how much better the ship looks now!’ Inflation happened. The housing crisis continued. Healthcare got more expensive. Student debt got forgiven, then the forgiveness got blocked, then got forgiven again, then got blocked again, until nobody remembered what the original promise was.
Building Back Better Is Hard When You’re Building Nothing
Here’s the fundamental problem with Biden’s presidency: he was always a moderate running against extremism, which meant his platform was basically ‘We’ll be slightly less worse than the other guy.’ That’s not building back. That’s preventing total collapse while calling it progress. The American people voted for restoration. They got competence, which is nice, but it’s not exactly thrilling.
Bill Burr said something about how people get angry at incremental change, and that’s Biden’s whole political existence. He made incremental changes while claiming to be transformative. He passed infrastructure spending while hospitals went bankrupt. He negotiated lower drug prices for Medicare while regular people still can’t afford insulin. He’s been President while American society got incrementally worse in meaningful ways.
The final speech will probably mention job creation numbers that are technically true but feel dishonest when you’re talking to people working three jobs and still unable to afford rent. Biden will probably cite unemployment statistics like they’re evidence of success, not realizing that unemployment statistics don’t capture the people working below minimum wage equivalents or gig economy positions that don’t offer benefits.
The Accomplishment Gap: What Biden Claims vs. What Actually Happened
Biden will claim he built infrastructure. The infrastructure bill passed, but its benefits are diffuse, slow to materialize, and frequently feel like government money disappearing into corporate pockets. He’ll claim he protected democracy. Democracy survived, barely, and only because Trump’s coup attempt was spectacularly incompetent. That’s not an accomplishment. That’s just not getting assassinated by your predecessor.
Jerry Seinfeld said something about how observation reveals truth, and the truth about Biden’s presidency is this: he prevented catastrophe better than you might expect, but he didn’t create the transformation he promised. His legacy will be ‘We survived,’ not ‘We thrived.’ That’s depressing when you consider he was supposed to be the antidote to Trump, not just the slightly gentler version of status quo.
Amy Schumer talks about how disappointment is universal, and that’s what Biden’s presidency delivered to everyone. The left wanted transformative change. The right wanted him to fail. The center wanted him to provide stability. He gave people disappointment in all three directions, which is actually impressive in its consistency.
The Speech Nobody Needs to Hear
Biden’s final speech will probably involve a lot of ‘we faced unprecedented challenges’ rhetoric, which is true, but it’s also what every president says when justifying mediocrity. He’ll probably try to frame his presidency as a bridge between Trump’s chaos and whatever comes next. It’s a better frame than ‘I was basically a boring old guy who occasionally made progressive gestures without follow-through.’
Ron White said something like ‘Sometimes you gotta just accept reality,’ and that’s what Biden should do. His presidency was competent. It wasn’t transformative. It wasn’t terrible. It was basically adequate, which is not what America needed but what America probably deserved. His speech should probably just be ‘We didn’t make things worse, and that’s saying something in this timeline.’
The real legacy of Biden’s presidency will be evaluated by historians who’ll probably conclude it was a holding pattern. He prevented Trump from being President again, which is huge. He didn’t prevent housing prices from skyrocketing, healthcare from being unaffordable, or fundamental inequality from growing. He did better than Trump. He didn’t do better than the American people needed.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigos.