Biden's Farewell May Signal a New Era for U.S. Democrats

Illustration by Will Allen/Europinion.

On January 15, 2025, US ex-President Joe Biden delivered his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office, closing a nearly 50-year chapter in his life and broader American politics. Warning of the dangers of oligarchy, the tech-industrial complex, and imploring Americans to “stand guard” for democracy, Biden’s farewell speech was miles away from the message he walked into office with: Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead.

Starting in politics as the sixth-youngest senator in American history, Biden’s career has spanned some of modern American history's most contentious and critical inflection points. Whether this was as a Senator, taking controversial stances to outlaw gay marriage or authorise the invasion of Iraq, or as Vice President, being a part of the bank “bailout”  administration, Biden was often met with unprecedented political environments. Navigating such scenarios and taking mainstream stances along party lines led Biden and American democrats to this point, for better or for worse. 

Biden’s career demonstrates how the Democratic Party has failed to evolve, especially at the rate at which times and the people it has served have changed. Sticking with the same party-line rhetoric, dismissing new leaders, and being critical of progressive ideals are all actions many democrats, including Biden, have taken in the name of anti-Trumpism. Yet, at this moment, when democracy is fragile and the far-right continues to grow stronger, democrats failed to rise to the occasion. It returns to and relies on the democratic establishment norms of the past, evident in Biden’s identical 2020 and 2024 campaigns.

Entering the 2020 race as a candidate on a “Rescue Mission For America's Soul,” Biden was the 20th candidate to join the Democratic race, with heavy support from the establishment. With the Democratic National Committee spending nearly $114 million, a broader picture begins to form about how not only the monetary influence may be to blame in some of the traditional stances but also how the Democratic Party began to lose its people-focused ways. “The old guard of the Democratic Party failed to stop Trump, and they can't be counted on to lead the fight against his divide-and-conquer politics today,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated concerning Biden’s entrance into the race. While her sentiments might not have come to fruition in the 2020 race, they rang true in the 2024 election cycle.  

Despite winning the 2020 election and entering office with a 57 percent approval rating, Biden’s habit of party-line traditional democratic politics persisted. Serving from the Oval Office, Biden clung to the conventional political jargon and structure of presidencies past. At first, he succeeded in this approach, passing the American Rescue Plan, strengthening unions, and signing the Inflation Reduction Act. Yet, this all came to a grinding halt in one day, October 7, 2023, as the establishment perspective he had defined for half a century stood there and did nothing.

October 7 marked the beginning of the Israel-Palestine Conflict that would not only alter Biden’s career; it would come to “stain his legacy.” This conflict, which took place only a few months after Biden announced his re-election bid, would also hit his chances of success in his venture to remain in office, especially with his handling of the crisis. While campaigning on the slogan “Let’s finish the Job,” many democrats felt disillusioned with his administration’s work and him as a politician, with a broader 70 percent of voters not wanting Biden to run again. Coupled with being blamed for high rates of inflation, a highly tense conflict in the Middle East, and a vicious culture war, Biden was transported back to the tense political environment his career was forged in. However, instead of campaigning with solution-based approaches, he stuck with establishment lingo, hoping that people would simply buy into the democratic platform, as they did with his predecessors. 

It was too late when he realised this would not happen. Biden withdrew on July 21st, 2024, nearly 4 months before election day. Despite immediately endorsing his Vice President, Kamala Harris, his exit crippled the Democratic Party in more ways than one. Not only were Democrats weakened by his continual interest in the race and his poor debate performance, but the minds of the people it wanted to represent were also changed. Nationwide, more democratic-leaning voters began to lose trust in the democratic way, with several concerned about issues the democrats were not even campaigning on. Issues like the economy, healthcare, and crime all mattered to registered democrats. Yet, Biden and the party alike continued to focus on the big-picture issues of democracy and identity politics, paying no mind to the rising costs of eggs or solutions to health insurance prices. 

Overall, Biden’s departure from the race and the White House personified a lesson we identified early on in this essay: democrats are out of touch with the people they want to elect them. By being composed mostly of career politicians and campaigning on buzzwords, democrats abandoned the founding Lincoln principle of “...for the people.” As Biden exits, Democrats must redefine the party's messaging, platform, and future place in the American political system. 

Considering this, here are three lessons I believe the Democratic establishment must learn to usher in a new era for the party, not only in the 2026 midterms but also in the 2028 Presidential election.

1. The establishment must support and allow new-age, unorthodox leaders to emerge. 

2. The establishment must embrace changes in party leadership and reflect the people they serve. 

3. The establishment must restore lost trust in previous democratic coalition supporters (i.e., Latinos, the working classes, African-Americans) before they turn to far-right ideals.