One of Australia's national myths is that we are a lucky country, insulated from the world's problems by our possession of an island continent rich in natural resources tucked away at the bottom of the globe. Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck. It seemed at first that our luck might hold; although there were outbreaks of Covid-19, these were traced to specific events, such as unmonitored disembarkations from cruise ships and localised outbreaks in agedcare facilities. Overall, however, Australia

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... weathered its first wave of the pandemic remarkably well; by the beginning of June 2020 we had suffered one hundred and three deaths (out of a total population of twenty-five million) from the virus. On a per capita basis, that performance (0.74 deaths per million) was far better than that of the United States at the same time (three hundred and twenty per million). 1 Much was made of our effective national health scheme, our perceived tradition of pulling together in a crisis, and the creation of a national cabinet to bring together the federal prime minister and state and territory premiers and chief ministers to establish national policy cooperation and coordination to combat the pandemic. In Australian eyes, the United States has responded very differently, with its wayward president, grid-locked legislative branch, ramshackle and unequal healthcare system and its fifty state jurisdictions all ploughing their own furrows. The narrative of America's systemic failure to respond adequately to the crisis has been reinforced by concurrent crises reflected in the Black Lives Matter movement, the urban disorder sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and by the drama of the presidential election. The overall result has been a portrayal of the United States as a deeply divided and ineffective state, spending much of its energy fighting culture wars and in ideological conflict while so many of its citizens fall victim to Covid-19 and to the systemic and civic failings that it has revealed.