Biden’s Lost in Britain – Apparently, the new king of England (who is 74) enjoyed the “personal warmth” exhibited toward him by the 80-year-old US President Joe Biden. But there’s something more going on than meets the eye in the images presented to the public of the American president’s recent visit with King Charles III.
At times, President Biden, clutching the arm of the English monarch as he was led around the royal palace, looked to many observers as though he genuinely did not know where he was. For their part, experts of the Royal Court and its complex protocols argue that Biden breached proper etiquette by being so grabby with the king.
King Charles, the Modernizer
Of course, Charles didn’t mind that aspect of his visit with the American president. After all, the king of England made it his life’s ambition to flout and undermine what he viewed to be the stilted conventions of the Royal Court—conventions that his mother had judiciously spent decades reinforcing.
Rumors have long abounded that a feud simmered quietly just below the maternal surface for decades between the deceased Queen Elizabeth II and her oldest son, Charles, over the new king’s incessant need to “modernize” the institutions of the Crown.
This was the basis of a major storyline in the popular Netflix series, The Crown, which the Royal Family has categorically denounced and denied the veracity of the content featured in the series. Still, the rumors of divisions existing within the Royal Family over Charles’ boundless commitment to defying the standards of monarchy that the late queen implemented persist.
Biden’s Bizarre Behavior in Britain
And the Biden Administration is playing down the forty-sixth president’s handsiness with the royal highness as friendliness. But concerns about the president’s cognitive state continue dogging the octogenarian president on both sides of the Atlantic.
Beyond the possibility that Biden’s cognitive state was in clear decline in England, the president does have a real problem with invading people’s personal space, which has become the source of many great memes online.
What’s more, Biden’s grasping for Charles during his tour was not the only bizarre behavior he exhibited. According to the Heritage Foundation’s Niles Gardiner, an expert on Anglo-American relations, the forty-sixth president appeared disengaged at times. In fact, Gardiner suggested that President Biden might not have known where he was at times.
More interestingly was the way that the American president was received by the British. It just wasn’t that big of a deal to many. It could be that Anglo-American relations are so strong, it’d have been odd if the American president didn’t visit or to have made a big deal about such a routine trip.
But, even when former President Donald Trump met with the now deceased Queen of England, it was greetedwith far greater fanfare than the Biden trip has been—despite the fact that Trump was far more hated among the British public than Joe Biden is.
Does Biden Hate the British?
There’s another issue at stake pertaining to Anglo-American relations under Biden. The forty-sixth president has, at times, appeared to be utterly unfriendly toward the British. A man who routinely touted his Irish heritage, President Biden has found himself at odds with the former colonizers of Biden’s ancestral homeland.
During his recent trip to Ireland, in which the president was accused by some of his detractors of trying to restart the dormant, centuries blood feud between the Irish and the British over the fate of British-controlled Northern Ireland.
Following his return from Ireland, President Biden gave a speech to a Democratic Party fundraiser in which he reportedly explained the real reason behind his Ireland trip: it was “to make sure the Brits didn’t ***** around” with Good Friday Peace Accord.
That accord, though, was made 25 years ago during the Bill Clinton Administration. It is one of the greatest achievements toward peace in the twentieth century and is a hallmark of effective multilateral diplomacy.
There was never any evidence that the British were seeking to undermine or “***** around” with the Good Friday Accords which is akin to settled science in diplomatic terms. Sure, there’s been problems in maintaining the details of the agreement after Brexit happened, but that’s not an example of active British malfeasance. It’s an unintended consequence of the British decision to leave the European Union.
What the Biden trip to Ireland earlier this year really showed was a simmering antipathy on the part of President Biden toward the British.
So, when Niles Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation makes a comment about how “disengaged” the president appeared while meeting with King Charles II, the Anglophobic tendencies of Biden might have been at play there.
Nothing Good Coming
It’s possible that all the above are true of Joe Biden.
That the president’s cognitive decline may have been on display for to see while visiting with king, which explains his clingy behavior. The king may have welcomed such odd behavior from a royal guest because it reinforced Charles’ lifelong mission of “modernizing” the Royal Court and its attendant industries. Lastly, Biden’s oddly disengaged actions while visiting the English king might have been an extension of his overall dislike of the British.
The Anglo-American relationship is the basis of the modern international order. An order that has been breaking down since the Iraq War of 2003. It is essential for American and British leaders to enhance the strength and closeness of this ailing relationship as a means of restoring some stability in our rapidly destabilizing international system.
While it may have been sweet for the British king to have been leaned on (literally, in some cases) by the aging American president, Biden’s behavior—and his overall policies toward Britain—are greatly disconcerting to those of us concerned about the future of the international system.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
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