Divisive speech but oligarchy rings true

If what America needs most after a divisive election is unity, then Joe Biden's farewell speech from the Oval Office bitterly fails. It was more like a wedge being driven through the nation.

Biden could have used the opportunity to call for national unity as the US is set for Trump 2.0.

Instead, the outgoing president opted to launch one final attack, albeit without mentioning names.

People critical of the president's past four years would totally disagree with him, while those opposed to Donald Trump would have no difficulty siding with him.

Having been active in US and global politics for five decades, Biden knew the audience only too well as he eyed the teleprompter and delivered the speech.

Nonetheless, although missing the last opportunity to unite Americans, there was a grain of truth as he warned about "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."

These are universal truths.

The 82-year-old president did not appear to be directing the attack at Trump but the growing circle of the country's super-rich around him, including not only Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX but also Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as well as many others who have been paying homage to the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago.

Besides the super-rich there is also a growing list of major companies queuing to donate US$1 million (HK$7.8 million) each to Trump's inauguration rally on Monday.

On the positive side, the donations will elevate the inauguration to a national high without costing taxpayers a single dollar.

On the negative side, it may be viewed as the minimum entry fee to get into the Trump circle or circles.

Could this be the oligarchy Biden had in mind when he said from the presidential desk that "today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, the freedoms and the fair shot for everyone to get ahead."

History, both ancient and contemporary, has not been short of examples of oligarchy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has had a ring of oligarchy heads around him by putting his loyalists in charge of major national assets.

However, that ring of oligarchy support is falling apart after the West retaliated against Russia's invasion of Ukraine with economic sanctions.

North Korea's Kim Jong Un needs no oligarchy as he leads the country as a uniquely wealthy and powerful individual.

As a rising number of wealthy individuals defect from the Democratic camp to scramble around Trump, it was not wrong of Biden to make his fears known.

However, that is not without a sense of hypocrisy since the Democrats had more super billionaires donating to Kamala Harris' campaign during the election than their opponent.

Was this not also a concentration of the rich and powerful?

As Trump is due to begin his presidency with a Hamas-Israel cease-fire deal in the Middle East coming into effect on the eve of the inauguration of his second term, it is important that the 47th president - arguably the most powerful in recent US history - guards against the rise of oligarchy.