President Biden will soon leave Washington in circumstances that he could not have imagined just four years ago — by returning the keys to the White House to the man whom he defeated in 2020 and whom he despises. 

Welcome to Washington, where on Monday President Trump’s victory in the 2024 election is due, with little fanfare, to be certified by a joint session of Congress. Despite the impending snowstorm that could keep some lawmakers from the historic event, members — and Vice President Harris — expect it to be a quick affair. 

On the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. Biden will be packing up his things to take home to Wilmington in just two weeks. It is apt that his vice president — recently defeated in a seven-state sweep by the president-elect — and his party, who are now relegated to the minority in both chambers of Congress, will be gathered to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power in one room as he stares out into the snow all by himself. 

Since the election, Mr. Biden has done his best to avoid serious interviews or conversations or even simple shouted-from-the-back-row questions from the press. On Sunday, USA Today announced that its editor, Susan Page, had been granted the only print interview with the president until he leaves on January 20. 

Other than the ceremonial trips to summits in both South America and Africa, Mr. Biden has participated in just 31 public events, and that’s including things like pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey, sitting for the Kennedy Center Honors, delivering brief remarks after the passing of President Carter, and presenting the Medal of Freedom to 19 individuals. 

His departure is a far cry from his arrival — heralded as a hero of the republic by liberals and disaffected Republicans who had turned against the 45th president. Now, Mr. Biden is being blamed by those same people as the man who facilitated an even more powerful Trump to return to the nation’s capital.

As the president-elect prepares for that triumphant return, the incumbent seems perfectly happy biding his time, pardoning his son after insisting he wouldn’t, granting clemency to accused fraudsters and crooks, toasting at parties in his honor, and delivering not one, but two, farewell speeches. 

Democrats ought to be outraged at the way he’s leaving. After more than five decades of public life in the nation’s capital — much of which, surely, was spent daydreaming about sitting behind the Resolute Desk — Mr. Biden will be going the way that Carter did in 1981: shoved into the rearview mirror. 

He won’t be setting up a global charity foundation akin to the Carter Center, he won’t be invited to speak to powerful entrepreneurs or the leaders of young democracies as President Clinton was, and he certainly won’t be called upon to do campaign events in the next midterms as President Obama was after he left the Oval Office. 

When Mr. Biden takes the stage to deliver his farewell addresses — one on foreign policy and one on his legacy at home — many Democrats’ eyes will certainly be rolling as he leaves them and their voters in a precarious position. He will sing the praises of his own work, though he will likely not mention the fact that most of his perceived successes — like the assault rifle ban — have been washed away, with many other soon to be reversed by Trump. 

His major domestic accomplishments on infrastructure, manufacturing, gun control legislation, statutory recognition of same-sex marriages all came about as a result of senators negotiating with each other as Mr. Biden used to do in his glory days — not as a result of Mr. Biden himself.

On issues abroad, voters delivered a resounding rebuke of Mr. Biden’s record. According to one CNN exit poll, of those voters who said foreign policy was their most important issue, 59 percent voted for Trump, while just 39 percent voted for Mr. Biden’s chosen heir. 

Eight years ago, the president-elect won his office by just 70,000 votes across three states, which was then seen as an easy hurdle for Democrats to clear in the election just four years later. Now, Trump will return to the White House thanks to a sweep of all seven swing states this year, the first popular vote victory for a GOP candidate in 20 years, and a much younger, more diverse coalition in the places where it matters.