Biden Promised To Turn The Page On Trump. Now He's Being Replaced By Him

Joe Biden promised nothing short of a national exorcism when he took office. He wanted to "restore the soul" of the country and prove that Donald Trump was only a footnote in the American story, not its next chapter.

The pitch was "let's try to get things back to normal as best we can," said Sean Wilentz, a historian who met twice with Biden in the White House.

It didn't work out that way. Despite exceeding expectations when it came to cutting bipartisan deals and rallying foreign allies , Biden was unable to turn the page on Trump. Four years after voters chose Biden over Trump , they picked Trump to replace Biden . It's an immutable and crushing outcome for an aging politician in the last act of his long career, one that will likely become the prism for how Biden is viewed through history.

"The fact is, the abnormality did not end," said Wilentz, a professor at Princeton University . "He may not have appreciated what he was up against."

Biden will offer his own perspective on how he wishes to be remembered in the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, when he'll deliver a farewell address . But Trump's impending return underscores the limits of Biden's ability to reshape the country's trajectory as his celebrated predecessors were able to do. With the end of his single term only days away, it's unclear how Biden will reconcile his hopes for his presidency with the results.