President Joe Biden
On Wednesday night, President Joe Biden delivered his farewell address from the White House Oval Office. Biden touted his accomplishments as President, including rescuing the country from the deadly COVID pandemic and deep recession inherited from Donald Trump, turning the economy around, creating a record number of jobs, strengthening NATO, and, lowering prescription drug prices for millions of seniors. Biden also cited his experience of 50 years of public service to this country. Along those lines, Biden was able to announce that, through his administration’s hard work, Israel and Hamas are reaching a cease-fire agreement that includes the release of hostages.
However, President Biden warned Americans about “the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people.” He called this concentration of wealth, power and influence “an oligarchy,” and stated that such oligarchy “threatens our entire democracy.” Biden pointed to the tech field in particular, stating that he feared “the rise of a tech industrial complex that can pose real dangers for our country as well,” especially when it comes to how Americans receive their information:
Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling…. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families, and our very democracy from the abuse of power. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time…. Nothing offers more profound possibilities and risk for our economy, and our security, for society…. But unless safeguards are in place, AI could spawn new threats to our rights, to our way of life, to our privacy….
Another danger from the oligarchy cited by President Biden is the possible rollback of his administration’s efforts to lessen climate change (such as those included in the Inflation Reduction Act), which have proven necessary given climate-related events including the Southern California fires and last fall’s destructive flooding in North Carolina resulting from Hurricane Helene. Biden warned that “powerful forces” seek to reverse his administration’s progress. Indeed, one need only look at Donald Trump’s choice of climate change denier Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Agency, or billionaire Doug Burgum, “a big booster of oil and gas drilling,” for Secretary of the Interior, to know that the Trump administration will be very unfriendly to the environment.
President Biden also proposed additional safeguards, such as a 18-year term limit and strong ethics rules for U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and a ban on stock trading by members of Congress, to help lessen this influence of oligarchs on our democracy. Biden said that “people should be able to make as much money as they can, but play by the same rules, pay their fair share of taxes.”
The question is, will enough people heed Biden’s warnings and suggestions? The 2024 election just took place, with billionaires such as Elon Musk contributing record amounts to PACs that supported Donald Trump. A majority of voters, many of them no doubt part of the Trump/Republican MAGA cult, did not seem to mind that billionaire backers in large part bought the election for Trump in order to help themselves, and they don’t care about the voters’ interests.
Even worse, these billionaires own the very media platforms, such as the Washington Post (owned by Jeff Bezos), the Los Angeles Times (owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong) and Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) that could pass such warnings along to the voters, but now will not due to their inherent conflict of interest. Such conflict could be seen before the election, when both the Times and the Post spiked their endorsements of Kamala Harris to help Trump. The Post explained that it was not endorsing anyone “to be independent,” but just five days ago it endorsed Trump’s choice of Pam Bondi for U.S. Attorney General. Meanwhile, the former Twitter has become a cesspool of right wing hate, platforming of Nazis, and praising of Trump, while featuring Musk’s own bashing of Democrats as having a “woke mind virus.”
Right now, therefore, the likelihood of enough Americans paying attention to President Biden’s warnings and doing something about it anytime soon seems slim. Perhaps the voters will come to a realization in time for the 2026 midterm elections.
Photo by Maryland GovPics, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/JeJ8qQ
