{"id":34523,"date":"2017-10-03T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T20:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=34523"},"modified":"2017-09-29T17:23:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T07:23:12","slug":"letter-from-america-with-an-oz-accent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/letter-from-america-with-an-oz-accent\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter from America with an Oz accent"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An Australian in the United States is branded on the tongue. The moment you speak, the accent reveals all. They know you\u2019re not from around here.<\/p>\n

In previous decades, the question was usually whether you were English or Irish. As a bloke in Maryland joked the other day, taking me for a Pom: \u2018We Americans think you people speak our language real good.\u2019<\/p>\n

On the accent front, I report progress. These days, Australia is often the first guess, so there\u2019s a fraction more recognition of the land of Oz. And this time I haven\u2019t once had the comic confusion over Austria or Australia.<\/p>\n

Another difference flowing from the branded-on-the-tongue moment has been noticeable during our six weeks in Washington, New York and up the East Coast.<\/p>\n

During previous visits\u2014under Reagan, Clinton and Obama\u2014being heard as not from \u2019round here never once triggered a question about what the outsider thought of the US president. The US is a world confidently unto itself, so in the past there was only mild interest in views about America. But the personality of the president never used to come up. It does now.<\/p>\n

Grappling with the meaning of Donald Trump has trumped questions about kangaroos and what season it is in Oz. That\u2019s why it was no surprise to see a glum Malcolm Turnbull as one of the faces on the cover of Foreign Affairs<\/em> magazine\u2019s September\/October edition reporting on how allies are responding to Trump: \u2018The view from abroad\u2019.<\/p>\n

My random sampling finds that the viewers within America are just as mystified. Lots of people around here are pondering what it is they\u2019re seeing in the White House. Some are amazed and scared and outraged. Some, though, love what they see: The Donald \u2018flipping the bird\u2019 at the system via tirades and tantrums as the Twittering, Trump-eting troll-in-chief.<\/p>\n

The lore and the laughs of the travelling correspondent game decree that a hack arriving in country afresh should make all grand pronouncements within weeks of landing. After that, the gradual growth of understanding and accumulation of facts tend to hamper the sweeping assertions. Sending a letter after six weeks means I\u2019m just covered by the impressions\/pronouncements rule. My conclusions:<\/p>\n