Even the four years Biden was in office were largely defined by Trump.

Biden opened his farewell address Wednesday night ensuring that his deputies, not Trump’s, received credit for the ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, though he acknowledged Team Trump would need to implement the plan and was kept in the loop throughout. 

He used the Oval Office speech to warn against a “tech-industrial complex” as bad as the military-industrial complex Dwight Eisenhower cautioned us against. He didn’t mention Trump or his ally Elon Musk by name, but the outgoing president’s reference to an “avalanche of misinformation and disinformation” was familiar.

HERE’S WHICH BIDEN EXECUTIVE ORDERS WILL BE THE FIRST TO GO UNDER TRUMP

“Social media is giving up on fact-checking,” Biden complained, a reference in part to Mark Zuckerberg’s abandonment of much-criticized practices after Trump won in November.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy,” Biden also said, after an election in which he stepped aside at the behest of his own party and his chosen replacement lost.

Nearly all of Biden’s talk about checks and balances, the importance of constitutional constraints, and presidents not being above the law was not too subtly aimed at Trump.

“After 50 years at the center of all of this, I know that believing in the idea of America means respecting the institutions that govern a free society, the presidency, the Congress, the courts, a free and independent press, institutions,” he said. “Our system of separation of powers, checks and balances may not be perfect, but it’s maintained our democracy for nearly 250 years, longer than any other nation in history that’s ever tried such a bold experiment.”

From Biden’s inaugural address to his farewell address, he defined his presidency largely in opposition to Trump. He relied on anti-Trump sentiment to finally win the White House on his third try and to minimize Democratic losses in the 2022 midterm elections. Biden said he ran in 2020 because of the deadly Trump-era Charlottesville white supremacist rally, though fact-checkers did not always support his characterization of Trump’s comments about the tragic event.

Biden vowed to turn the page on Trump, yet Trump always dominated Biden’s script.

While Biden maintained he had been a president for all Americans, he left ambiguous how far beyond Trump his repeated warnings that the “MAGA movement” was a threat to democracy extended. 

Despite regularly expressing fears about democracy being in peril, Biden seemed at times to be itching to run against Trump again. “In the next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me,” he said while in Brussels in 2022. It will be remembered as an example of the old adage about being careful what you wish for.

Perhaps all this was inevitable, given Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election or participate in the subsequent transition process. Biden took office in 2021 two weeks after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.

But Trump never lost his connection with Republican voters. He soon regained his influence with GOP leaders. Most importantly, Biden’s age and growing unpopularity, fueled by inflation hitting a 41-year high, chaos at the border and abroad, and a disconnect between how the White House and voters viewed the state of the economy, created the conditions for Trump’s rehabilitation.

Biden extolled the successes of his own policies and administration Wednesday night, twice singling out Vice President Kamala Harris for praise. This celebration of their success sits uneasily next to Biden’s claim that he is ceding power to a democracy-endangering oligarchy after an election he exited at his party’s behest and Harris, his handpicked successor, lost.

The Trump era in national politics began with a ride down the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015. It continues on Monday, when Trump takes the oath of office for a second, nonconsecutive, four-year term.

Biden vowed to roll back the Trump era and chart a new course. While many of the Democrat’s policies were different, by every measure he failed. When Biden leaves the Oval Office, he will be handing over the keys and the nuclear codes to Trump.