Snapshot: Joe Biden’s Warning

In his farewell, the president addresses the dangerous threat of oligarchy

“Now it’s your turn to stand guard,” President Joe Biden said. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/Pool via Getty Images)

In the latter half of President Joe Biden’s farewell address last night from the Oval Office, he zeroed in on the dangers of oligarchy. He talked about the “tech-industrial complex” and “the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.” His words were consciously reminiscent of President Dwight Eisenhower’s still-relevant farewell when he warned in 1961 of the growing power of the military-industrial complex.

Anyone who has been reading America, America has probably noticed that the dangers of oligarchy have been a rising concern here. That includes the growing stranglehold by billionaires of dominant information ecosystems that define what much of our citizenry knows and believes. Biden described it like this:

Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. 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.

I found Biden’s warning useful for anyone who hasn’t paid attention to these issues. But the oligarchic consolidation has been hard to miss, particularly with the Trump-backed ascent of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and Trump’s installation of nearly two dozen billionaires into his leadership group (with little if any pushback likely from the GOP Senate majority). We can be sure this small group of the ultra-wealthy will be paying attention to their own interests, including more tax breaks for themselves and their rich friends, rather than the issues that many working people falsely believed Trump cared to address.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden warned. “We see the consequences all across America.”

I’m grateful that Biden brought this up now, but there surely was more that he and his administration could have done to stem this treacherous trajectory. That could have included a tougher fight to raise taxes on the richest among us, a more aggressive slap back at a Supreme Court aiding and abetting oligarchy (more judges! term limits!), and getting dark money out of our elections. Biden brought up all these needed changes last night, but it comes too late. This problem of income inequality and the concentration of wealth didn’t just show up when Elon Musk began jumping up and down at Trump’s hatefests.

But here we are. And as impossible as it might seem for everyday Americans to confront this problem, we can’t wait four years to begin this work. We need to advocate for changes that will lessen the impact of the billionaire class—and do it before there’s a rising conviction that the only response is a violent one as bloodlust begins to feel like the only authentic emotion.

At the end of his remarks, which became increasingly touching and even mournful, as swan songs often do, Biden reminded us about our responsibilities. “Now it’s your turn to stand guard,” he said. “May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith.”

It struck me that America’s president was making the point that he’s not really transferring power to Donald Trump and his henchmen, but rather to you, me and everyone who cares about democracy and truly loves their country.

Thank you, Joe. Message received. Mission accepted.

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