Yes, the current president of the United States is one of the most loathsome men ever born, and yes, 36 per cent of polled Americans are foolish enough and debauched enough to "approve" of him - but are these reasons enough for us to despise America and Americans per se?

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The latest Lowy Institute Poll "feelings thermometer" finds that the warmth of Australians' feelings towards America has fallen 13 degrees since 2024 to a lowest-ever frostiness.

But Australians all, what if, to give the USA a kind of birthday present on its 250th birthday, we make a real effort to try to think some kind thoughts about America and Americans?

It isn't easy, I know. Americans are not a bit like us, and the cliché of our having "shared values" with them is balderdashian.

For example, civilised Australia has not executed anyone for 60 years but as I write this, one of the 27 brutalised, backward US states that uses the death penalty, Florida, is about to execute yet another prisoner.

But to get back to my charitable theme. Thinking Australians will reason that America is so much more than, so much better than, its present swinish president and its present poisoned national mood. And the same polling that finds 36 per cent approval of Trump finds 59 per cent of Americans astute enough and moral enough to disapprove of him.

So for those of us who want to try to think kind thoughts of the USA, I offer a big idea. It is borrowed and adapted from a very recent edition of the intellectually, artistically and journalistically excellent New Yorker magazine (to which I dotingly subscribe, admiring it for its famous and uniquely American excellence in journalism, in art, in everything).

With the USA's 250th in mind, the New Yorker has just........

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