The election of Joe Biden has come as an enormous relief to mainstream political parties in the democratic world as it shows that xenophobic populists can be defeated by a moderate, old-school democratic politician. It is a particular bonus for Ireland because the new US president is more closely attached to this country than any of his predecessors in the White House.
That attachment was evident in his warnings to the UK, before and after his election, not to breach the terms of the Belfast Agreement in the course of the Brexit process. Crucially Biden has a real understanding of this country and does not pander to cliched demands for a united Ireland parroted by some US politicians. Instead he is committed to the shared island approach being followed by Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
Biden’s backing for the Irish position on the Belfast Agreement is accompanied by a firm commitment to the EU. His approach contrasts starkly with that of Donald Trump, who loudly backed Brexit, disdained the EU and supported populist nationalists across the continent trying to wreck it.
It is interesting to compare Biden’s strong support for the Irish Government’s position with that of the first Irish-American Catholic US president, John F Kennedy. The latest volume of Irish foreign policy documents, published this week by the Royal Irish Academy, details an attempt by the then Irish foreign minister Frank Aiken to persuade Kennedy to publicly pressurise the UK government on the issue of partition.
Irish ambassador to Washington Thomas J Kiernan reported back to Dublin in March 1963, on a St Patrick’s Day meeting with the president during which he relayed the request from the minister, but Kennedy made it clear that he had no intention of adopting Aiken’s suggestion. “He is by education British inclined and in the present international conjuncture he makes no secret of his firm attachment to Britain ... He would therefore regard our suggestion as embarrassing to the British,” Kiernan explained to his superiors in Dublin. At a later meeting in June 1963, just before he made his historic visit to Ireland, Kennedy “looked as if another headache had struck him” when the ambassador, on instructions, raised partition again.
Special relationship
Biden’s latest warning to the UK this week about tampering with the Belfast Agreement shows how things have changed. The much vaunted special relationship between the US and the UK has been badly damaged by Brexit, and Boris Johnson will have to take serious account of the likely American response as the talks with the EU enter their end game. In particular he will have to weigh up the consequences of his actions for his desired trade deal with the US.
While Biden’s election has come as a relief to a majority of Americans, and to most of the world, it should not be forgotten that he had to wage a dogged battle against a range of forces in his own party to even make it into the ring with Donald Trump. For much of the Democratic liberal elite he was too old, too moderate and too nice. In short, the kind of professional politician they despise, just as Trump does. This attitude was summed up by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, who sneered at his performance in the first Democratic primary debate in 2019 that “Biden has too much past and not enough presence.”
By contrast hardened Democratic campaigners knew from the beginning that Biden represented the best chance of beating Trump. On a visit to Washington three years ago, I spoke to veteran party strategist Tom Lindenfeld, who was adamant Biden would have beaten Trump in 2016 and was the only Democrat who could do it in 2020.
His argument was that Biden had the ability, lacked by all of the other declared candidates, to win back some of the white working-class voters who had deserted the party. His analysis was similar to that of academic Mark Lilla, whose book The Once and Future Liberal coolly analysed the reasons why the Democrats had become detached from their natural base in recent decades.
Most popular
Opinion polls showed from the beginning that Biden was easily the most popular Democratic candidate with the American public, but he was pilloried in the media for his alleged gaffes and suffered a series of defeats in the early primaries. His campaign looked dead and buried until the black voters of South Carolina gave him a huge endorsement that put him on the road to the Democratic nomination.
In the general election Biden’s cool, unflappable approach resonated with an electorate weary of Trump’s histrionics and traumatised by the coronavirus pandemic. However, the Democratic party failed to capitalise on Biden’s popularity and, instead of making the expected gains in the House of Representatives, actually lost seats in districts where Biden beat Trump.
Biden’s victory showed decency and moderation can still prevail in a political world dominated by the hate-filled rhetoric of Trump and the ideological intolerance of left-wing Democrats. His challenge will be to deliver constructive reform in a divided society, but no matter what happens in the years ahead, he has done a great service by beating Trump.