President Joe Biden was right when he claimed that his presidency will be a bridge.

However, he failed to develop it for the new Democratic generation that was promised.

He is, instead, the president who lingered in office too long, and as a result, his government alternated between two terms of Donald Trump, his former adversary whom he vanquished and then allowed to return to power.

It would be crude to refer to this as Biden's political catastrophe. This is a man who, after burying his first wife and two of his children, endured endless personal suffering. But it's his own serious electoral mistake and the fate history has dealt him.

In his latest attempt to write a first draft of history about a presidency he maintains is worth far more than the shame of a single term, this somber truth cast a shadow on Biden's farewell speech on Wednesday night.

Just after 8 p.m. on the East Coast, the president remarked from the Oval Office, "My eternal thanks to you, the American people." "I promise you that after 50 years of public service, I still believe in the ideal that this country is built upon—a nation where the virtues of our institutions and the character of its citizens are important and must endure."

But by Monday afternoon, the adversary that Biden forewarned in 2020 posed a deadly threat to America's spirit will once again be in the White House, as Biden retires to Delaware and leaves the nation to deal with whatever comes next.

In light of this, Biden used his speech to warn of the danger he seen in Trump's second term and what he referred to as his successor's group of "robber barons." In fact, he seems to think that the existential threat is more pressing now than it was when he started his 2020 campaign.

Biden stated, "I want to warn the country tonight about some things that give me great concern." He warned of "dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked" and mentioned "a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people."

Biden issued a warning about storms brewing around democracy, just like President George Washington did in his farewell speech.

He stated that "an oligarchy of extreme wealth, power, and influence is taking shape in America today that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead."

Biden also echoed President Dwight Eisenhower, who as he left the White House invoked the threat posed by the military industrial complex, when he declared that social media, artificial intelligence, and the tech bro billionaires and millionaires that are populating Trump's incoming administration represent a new era of danger.

"The possible emergence of a tech industrial complex that could present genuine threats to our nation also worries me," Biden stated. "Power abuse is being made possible by the deluge of false and misleading information that is burying Americans. The free press is disintegrating. Fact-checking on social media is being abandoned. Lies propagated for financial gain and power stifle the truth.

With a picture of his late son Beau, who passed away from brain cancer, resting on the table over his left shoulder, Biden talked with a calm and determined demeanor. His slurred words and reedy voice, however, poignantly conveyed the weight of a demanding four-year presidency that is coming to a close in his ninth decade. Age took away Biden's ability to sell his ideas and shape the national narrative months ago, if he is still capable of being president.

The audience was left wondering how Biden ever came to the conclusion that he would be able to serve out a second term, which would have took him to the age of 86.

The conclusion of a political period and a career

Biden wasn't merely bidding the nation farewell on Wednesday night.

He revealed the only adult life he had ever had, including his decades as a senator, vice president, and president, as well as the unwavering ambition that kept him going through periods of personal suffering. Half a century ago, he came to Washington as a young senator who was already predicted to become commander in chief.

In those days, Richard Nixon worked in the office where Biden spoke on Wednesday, Mao Zedong ruled China, and Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union with an iron grip.

Therefore, the 82-year-old president was ending a political era that was based on the American alliance system that won the Cold War. He also had a connection to the 20th century and a perspective that he shared with all of his contemporary predecessors, with the exception of one.

Biden was born during Franklin Roosevelt's presidency in 1942, but he will hand over authority at noon on Monday to a successor who appears determined to destroy the geopolitical framework that FDR initially envisioned for the West.

On paper at least, Biden can claim one of the more successful one-term presidencies, which is one of the ironies of his drawn-out, agonizing farewell that has been going on since Vice President Kamala Harris lost the November election.

With more growth and job creation than all of America's leading rivals, Biden helped the US economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, which Trump mishandled. His legislative accomplishments surpass those of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, as well as Trump's first term. After signing significant pandemic recovery acts, a rare bipartisan infrastructure measure, and new laws to revitalize manufacturing and establish a new American semi-conductor industry, some would argue that he is the most prolific signer of momentous laws since Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s. When it recently went into effect, his accomplishment of lowering the cost of some prescription medications was overshadowed by Trump's comeback.

He made the observation that these bills might have important long-term effects that persist beyond his presidency. In decades to come, they will be crucial to any possible reevaluation of the Biden legacy. Joe Biden, a working-class man from Scranton, Pennsylvania, created all of them to help the working class, which was left behind in the globalization era and received less than most from Trump's massive first-term tax reduction. Ironically, though, Trump's reform of the GOP and his return to power were completed when the Democratic blue-collar base collapsed during his administration.

Biden filled the void created by Trump's disdain for America's allies during his first term abroad. He prevented the United States from entering a conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary while rescuing Ukraine from Russia's unlawful and brutal invasion. During their tenure, presidents are seldom given credit for averting disasters. However, hawks who criticize that Biden provided Ukraine with enough weaponry to survive but not to win frequently overlook this crucial accomplishment.

Biden strengthened US ties in Asia and mostly followed Trump's aggressive stance toward China. However, his declaration that "America is back" after he ousted his predecessor from the White House now seems hollow to world leaders who are now dealing with Trump's comeback and are under attack from global populism.

A national rejection of a presidency

The vast majority of Americans will have abandoned Biden's administration by the time he leaves office.

In a new CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday, his approval rating is at its lowest point ever. His performance on immigration (31%), foreign affairs (32%), and the economy (33%), is even less favorable.

In hindsight, Biden's administration was marred by four historic mistakes, including the White House informing the public that events they could witness firsthand were not actually taking place.

As demonstrated by the president's off-key "Bidenomics" victory lap, the administration never truly comprehended the gut punch inflation dealt to Americans. A slow-motion political catastrophe was triggered by the belief that high prices were "transitory."

Trump took advantage of the nation's mood and anxiety over undocumented migration, which converged with sentiments of general insecurity that included dread of crime and families' financial hardships, as well as officials' months-long insistence that there was no "crisis" at the southern border.

Even now, Biden maintains that ending America's longest war in Afghanistan was the right decision. However, disturbing photos of refugees clinging to US planes as they took off from Kabul in the midst of the Taliban's onslaught and the murder of 13 US service members in a suicide attack during a disorderly evacuation undermined his claim to be an expert in foreign affairs.

However, the agonizing eclipse that culminated in Biden's parting speech on Wednesday was caused by his insistence that he could defeat Trump once more. Despite surveys showing Americans thought he was too elderly and voter testimony that repeatedly conveyed the same message, he decided to run.

How Wednesday's farewell was the result of a catastrophic debate

When Biden's advanced age and diminished mental capabilities were exposed in a CNN debate with Trump in June, it was ten agonizing minutes that basically terminated his presidency. Following an unintelligible Biden comment, the Republican nominee delivered a stunning attack that left millions of Americans wondering: "I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence." Nor do I believe he understands what he stated.

As long as there are televised debates, there will remain clips of the encounter, perhaps accompanied by a younger Ronald Reagan's rejection of the age question.

Future generations won't remember the younger Biden—the witty, attractive senator and politician who kept falling but always got back up, or the grandfather with a big heart and a twinkle in his eye who was elected in 2020 to bring some semblance of normalcy back during the pandemic. They will witness him at his weakest and least productive. Furthermore, the departing commander in chief will not have decades to change the perception of his one-term presidency, unlike Jimmy Carter, whom Biden praised in one of his final actions as president.

Biden was like the elderly magician Prospero in Shakespeare's "The Tempest," alone on stage when his "charms are all o'erthrown," as he concluded his speech, his political energy all but depleted.

It's your turn to be on guard now. "May you all maintain the faith and be the keeper of the flame," Biden wished the nation.

"I adore America." You also adore it. May God bless everyone.