Is Biden Anti-British?

32 comments

1. His mother was very [anti-English](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/10/joe-bidens-mother-so-disliked-england-she-refused-to-sleep-in-bed-queen-had-slept-in), and Biden refused to speak with the BBC in that infamous clip where he said “he was Irish”. Also those photos of him with Gerry Adams floating around. Gonna leave one of my favorite Biden memes [here](https://youtube.com/shorts/UuFHI9hHiLU?feature=share). Make of this what you will

2. In countries like the US, Ireland, India, etc, it’s pretty well established how poorly the British treated their colonial possessions. I know it’s probably a sensitive subject within Britain and it’s probably whitewashed to a great degree,, but making light of it is how some people cope with sensitive subjects. I highly doubt Biden is anti British, the UK-US relationship is pretty strong.

3. I mean, they have a long history of fucking around with Ireland, including within living memory, not sure what you expect. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

4. If the shoe were on the other foot and the british prime minister were in Vietnam or the Philippines making sure the “yanks didn’t screw around”, I would honestly find it humorous. It’s dark humor though, not cut out for everyone.

5. I mean putting aside the fact that he’s Irish (for yall, that translates to “of Irish decent” just so we can put that shtick to rest), I’m sure there’s at least a small handful of other countries who don’t have the most tasteful opinions of the British for some particular reasons…

6. Britain recently tried to enact [an amnesty law that would prevent its soldiers from being prosecuted for war crimes during the Troubles](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-63994623), an act that was seen by international and domestic parties as undermining the Good Friday Agreement. Currently, the GFA doesn’t include amnesty to participants who haven’t been prosecuted for crimes relating to the Troubles, nor that the British military was mentioned anywhere in the agreement, so the Brits tried to get around it by also granting amnesty to IRA and Loyalist paramilitaries.

7. Aren’t we all, redcoat?

8. His mom was fiercely irish nationalist and expressed those feelings pretty strongly during the 3/4 of his political career when she was still alive, so that clearly influenced him. As guy with partial armenian ancestry, I can say that if your family experienced extraordinary trauma a la the potato famine & tons of other subjugating events through the centuries, that’s something that’ll get passed down the family tree and become part of your origin story.

   I don’t think that statement is wrong, but personally, if I were president, I wouldn’t be so indulgent as to let this impact diplomacy. I’d be representing my country, not myself.

9. Aren’t we all?

10. To be fair the Gammons fucked up the good Friday agreement with brexit, denied it was a problem, lied about it, then imposed a none solution that just about broke the GFA.

    ( for my American friends. Gammon = equivalent of a red neck, little Englander, Tory, Racist, fuckwits )

    So He kind of has a point 🙂

11. In that he would want to sever our geopolitical relationship with the UK? No. On a personal level? Probably.

12. I don’t think he’s anti-British, he’s just not a big fan of how you treat Northern Ireland.

    The latter does not imply the former.

13. I mean, who wouldn’t be?

14. Who knows? He is more senile than anything.

    He used to play up his Irish heritage a LOT. *I’m* more Irish than he is.

    He is also of British heritage, but he ignores that.

    Yeah, I would say he was probably raised in a non-Brit loving environment.

    I think Obama disliked the Brits more, because of his grandfather being tortured by the British in Kenya.

15. The US helped broker the Good Friday accords and maintaining that peace is a longstanding foreign policy objective. The UK chose Brexit which endangered that.

16. Are the British Anti-Irish?

17. In all honestly you have to remember that Biden is really old. He reminds me a little of my Dad who grew up during the Great Depression and World War II.

    That generation thought very differently. They were ethnic but they also carried a little of the hostility that comes with it. Irish v. English, Catholic v. Protestant.

    The Irish in the US had been discriminated against for a long time for being different. There were suppressed bigoted feelings on both sides.

    My father had this crazy friend who used to get this IRA ish newspaper in the 80s. He had this list of English companies to boycott, and at the time, it pissed me off because matchbox cars were made in England and were on the list.

    My father also worked two jobs. So, I spent a lot of time watching TV. We only had 4 channels at the time. One of them had the BBC. Which I watched a lot.

    So, I was watching Dr. Who, and later Masterpiece theater. While we visited Ireland, and I find it unfortunate that a lot of bad things happened to the Irish, I really found that I didn’t really dislike modern English people either.

    I think Joe had many of the same influences, but didn’t have the opportunity to enjoy the BBC in the late 1970s.

18. The UK is arguably our strongest ally. He was taking the piss.

19. He should be

20. No. He’s just holding imperialists in denial accountable.

21. I feel like the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement as been very important to a lot of U.S. Presidents and there has been concern that Brexit might endanger it. Because of his Irish ancestry, Biden undoubtedly takes it very seriously. I’m sure his mother did influence his views, but I doubt he’s a flaming Anglophobe. He attended Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and always spoke very fondly of her.

    Honestly, I think all of this hullabaloo has its roots in the perceived “snub” of him not attending the coronation and now the British media is taking it all to the extreme. I still get British news articles from my visit to the UK and some of the articles I see are just absolutely absurd.

22. Do people forget the UK isn’t the US? There’s nothing wrong with a sitting president taking a jab at another country imo especially when it’s directed at the countrie’s government and not the country as a whole.

23. He’s certainly pro-Irish, and he’s using words that would appeal to his audience there. Also, Joe Biden is quite well-known for sticking his foot in his mouth.

24. If he is I don’t really care.

25. I wouldn’t take it too personally. He didn’t even remember visiting Ireland the next week or so when talking to some school kids.

26. Meme answer: no, but he should be

27. He doesn’t know what he’s saying about half the time.

28. The very next sentence of your article is a quote of him saying “but all kidding aside”

    I don’t know man, you tell me.

29. Glad to see our president is encouraging terrorists and their radical political wing (the IRA and Sein Fein)…

30. Mildly, and it’s hilarious.

31. I feel like it seems he truthfully doesn’t personally like the country, but this sub is very pro Biden so you’ll get downvotes when you criticize him here. Especially if it’s a foreign poster I notice, and lots of Democrats are in this sub. (No for anyone who reads I’m not Republican, but I hate both parties) Someone got downvoted the other day just for asking what the Americans on here personally think about Joe Biden, which isn’t even inherently positive or negative question, but just asking people’s opinions. I understand if people have a distaste for British colonial history, but it’s not like we also haven’t committed atrocities.

    I wish British people would acknowledge it more, sure, but I feel like a lot of Americans have similar issues with our history. I can’t help but to feel like if it were any other president besides Biden saying things like he hates the Brits in private and he went to Ireland in order to make sure Brits don’t screw around, they’d get hate for the possibility of alienating one of our biggest allies.

    To me it’s a bad look for us to be meddling in good Friday agreement affairs that should be none of our business and be between Britain and Ireland whether or not Ireland wants to be apart of the UK. Because other presidents haven’t cared about that I don’t think, and I think soft disputes our allies are having with another country we’re either neutral with or is another ally, should be between them. It doesn’t concern us, so I don’t know why we’d suddenly care about it other than Biden incorporating personal biases he has to US policy.

    Sure you could make the argument Biden was only joking around but I think there’s some genuine truth to the statements given his family history. If it weren’t for that I’d agree that it’s likely just joking, but given the fact, they’re likely jokes he’s making with what he really means is hidden truth. I know I’m bound to get downvoted for this, but it’s how I feel.

32. No politician in the United States could ever hold any important office if they were anti-British, so no.