“Remember, Joey, the best drop of blood you have is Irish,” President Joe Biden said, quoting his grandfather.
Such fierce ethnic pride from the “most Irish of all American presidents,” as the Taoiseach describes him, was guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser, and Biden knew it.
Biden displayed an endless supply of that pride during a three-day visit that culminated in a speech Friday night in Ballina, County Mayo, where his paternal ancestors once lived. The speech was the last item on his agenda before returning to Washington.
“Being here is like coming home,” he told the crowd of 27,000, delving into family history dating back to before the Irish famine of the mid-19th century.
The Irish “always believe in a better tomorrow,” he said. “Our strength is something that overcomes everyday difficulties.”
Biden’s love for his Irish roots and, in turn, the affection shown in the enthusiastic applause from Irish lawmakers listening to his speech before parliament, and in the cheering crowds lining up waiting for his motorcade in stormy weather, also could reach another audience: American voters.
“Ireland is one of the few countries where an American president can guarantee an uncritical welcome,” said Brendan O’Leary, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.
This visit, designed to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, is especially important. The 1998 peace agreement helped end 30 years of bloody conflict over whether Northern Ireland should unite with Ireland or remain part of the United Kingdom.
By showing that the US is playing a constructive role in keeping the peace, Biden is sending an important message to the American people, in contrast to less successful foreign policy outcomes such as the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, O’Leary told the VOA.
Biden’s GOP rivals had a different opinion. On the Tucker Carlson show on Fox News, former President Donald Trump criticized Biden’s tour of his ancestral homeland.
“The world is exploding around us. You could end up in a third world war and this guy will be in Ireland!” he said Tuesday night.
Foreign policy credits aside, O’Leary said Biden clearly represents his Irish American experience as typical of the American middle-class experience.
“I think that makes it easier for his ‘Ordinary Joe’ campaign,” he added.
“My plan is to apply again”
Speaking to reporters before leaving Ireland on Friday, Biden said he would announce his re-election bid “relatively soon”.
“I told you, my plan is to reapply,” he said.
His campaign will once again focus on his middle-class agenda, a message deeply entwined with his Irish roots and working-class family background.
The latest US government census indicates that about 10% of Americans, 31 million people, claim Irish ancestry. In presidential elections in recent decades, Irish Americans traditionally backed Democratic candidates until 2016, when Trump won about half their support.
But more than ancestry, the elections are determined by programs and values. In his 50 years in politics, Biden, who says he was raised “with a fierce pride in our Irish ancestry,” often highlights the egalitarianism and communal solidarity captured in his family’s creed: that everyone is equal.
“I don’t know if many other politicians would say something like that,” said Timothy Meagher, a former associate professor at the Catholic University of America who studies ethnic history with a focus on Irish Americans.
“There’s a kind of sense, in him, of an identification with the working class, with normal people,” Meagher told the VOA. “It follows, I think, from that kind of Irish heritage, that we’re all in this together.”
Other values include the dignity of work, which Biden has linked to legislative calls for job creation policies that allow workers to earn a living wage, form unions, and receive paid family and medical leave.
His vision of immigration is also imbued with his Irish character. On at least two occasions during his trip, he told the story of how his maternal ancestor, shoemaker Owen Finnegan, immigrated to New York in 1849, around the same time as former President Barack Obama’s maternal ancestor, Joseph Kearney, also a shoemaker from a nearby city.
“Isn’t that amazing?” he told reporters on Thursday. “The idea that they would both look for a new life and think that their great-great-grandchildren would end up being president of the United States is remarkable.”
It is the story of how poor immigrants can live the American dream, said Eoin Drea, a senior fellow at the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies. “I think this is how President Biden views the family transitioning from him to where they are now,” he told the VOA.
Odds
Biden’s origin story shapes how he understands the country’s psyche, often repeating what he said he told Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which America can be defined in one word: possibilities.
His optimism could resonate with another group of voters: naturalized citizens and descendants of immigrants. In the 2020 presidential race, more than 23 million immigrants, representing about 10% of the electorate, were eligible to vote, according to a Pew Poll based on census data.
The cynical view is that political expediency motivates Biden to build on his image as a feisty son of a working-class family from Scranton, Pennsylvania. But because of the endless “Bidenisms” and the quotes from his parents that always start with “Joey…”, Meagher said Biden seems genuine.
“There’s kind of a politics to that, but it’s one that he seems to naturally fit into,” he said.
Through his rhetoric and legislative proposals, Biden has woven a consistent theme into his first term: building the economy from the bottom up and middle by creating jobs, even for people without college degrees.
Whether that will lead to a second term remains to be seen. Especially if he once again faces Trump, the leading Republican contender, according to a recent poll.
In 2020, Trump’s nativist “Make America Great Again” message secured him 66% of the vote among white men without a four-year college degree, compared to 31% for Biden.
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