> Since covid, talking to my friends in the USA about Australia feels like punching down.

Please do not take offense to this. This will be infuriating, but I want you to understand the American mindset that causes this behavior.

Please know that I am found of Australians: In primary school, 2 of my neighbors were Australian, and I played with them every day. They were wonderful, very kind, loyal friends, and their family was amazing. In high school, one of my best friends at the high school was Australian, along with her sister. They were always kind to me and talked to me about thoughtful things. I have serious health problems, and one time I had a medical emergency (severe low blood glucose reaction) at school after hours, and her older sister took care of me for a what really was a long time, before adults could take over. I will be forever thankful to her and her family.

Everybody knows that Australia can be very cliquish, which really sets Americans off. While Australia does quite a phenomenal job of taking care of and looking after its citizens, if you are not a citizen then there is outright hypocrisy on that standard. This is awful to say, but it is true.

Just an example: you must be very healthy to become either a permanent resident or an Australia citizen (naturalizing via work--not marriage or descent), as there are medical inadmissability clauses in the immigration laws. Basically, if you cost more than $8,000 AUD/year total for both health care and other related social services, then you are medically inadmissable to Australia. If one of your immediate non-citizen family members in Australia exceeds this cutoff, then all of you cannot live permanently in Australia. It is brutal.

You also pay a lot for housing in Australia, and things are just not as well built or insulated there. It is an engineering problem, and Americans find it appalling. I posted this link in an r/IWantOut post, and prior to doing so, I said, "Australia truly is a great country, and its people take care of its own citizens, but there is going to be a serious housing crisis that is going to occur in the future. You need to be aware of this issue." Anyways, I got a TON of flak for it, by Australians, and rightfully so, as Australia is a great country:

Expert warns Australia could turn into slums in 20 years | 60 Minutes Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRSdiq3sOTc

Americans tend to find the "happy-go-lucky attitude" of some Australians to be appalling. In that sense, many Americans find Australians to be jarring and they get under Americans' skin.

As for American hypocrisy: Americans think that they are the center of the world. Many Americans think that we are the best country in the world, which is laughable at best. Those people are in for a rude awakening in the future. But, my point is, that in the past 4 years of Trump, American Empire has declined in reality about 40 years, due to Trump's "work".

Also, Americans are big on their BS "freedoms", in totally hypocritical ways. One could write books about it. It would actually be great satire.

We always had the strategic capacity, at least in theory, with our institutions and infrastructure (if Trump was not our president) to at least attempt the elimination strategy, although places like Australia and New Zealand have natural geographical advantages.

The problem is that very few Americans are willing to take pain in solidarity with others, for a short period of time, to potentially eliminate such a terrible infectious illness that will cause everyone even more pain long term.

In America, there is always a baseline level of fear and anxiety too, present all the time even pre-pandemic, which a president like Trump knows how to appropriate in "hits" of pain onto the right groups of people. Americans expect a lot of pain, just in general.

So, when Americans see failure (which is a very mild failure) in Australia from coronavirus leaks into the community, the Americans are doling out a "hit" of pain to you (Australians), in an "in your face way".

They are trying to say, "see social democracy and social solidarity don't work: you failed" and "see, look, we are better than you and for so many reasons" and "The pain you had to go through for those lockdowns never worked and never will work: you might as well give up--we have it better than you no matter what!"

Mostly, Americans are projecting this onto Australians: We (Americans) are better than you, because we never had to give up ANY of our freedoms: we can choose to live life on our own terms. Do not (you: Australians) tell us what to do with our country, which is the "best in the world".