Well yes, not quite. Generally there has been an appreciation of the US, the cars seemed cool especially 50s 60s & 70s, some of the movies are kind of cheesy but we like them, some good music.You can't ignore the US. But people aren't wanting to live there, the Health care system is terrible, the gun culture is crazy, the race problems seem deep, not that we don't have racial issues but they seem comparatively trivial. Still overall the reaction is the US is that its kind of brash but likeable.
But I have to say with Trump the crass element just drowned out everything else and it wasn't just that he was a terrible leader, breaking alliances with Europe and being rude to the Australian Prime Minister, but that a sizeable proportion of the population followed him even after he tried to over turn your democracy which we sort of thought through thick and thin you had respect for. We don't want to see democracy fail in the US, it will have ripple effects around the world, so currently I'd say we look to the US with concern, we're glad Trump lost the election but that the whole population should have had a Watergate like sense of having made a big mistake.
I would rather visit Europe than the US for the sense of history and culture.
I think that's pretty representative of NZ opinion. There are lovers of Trump here but they're rare. The UK looms just as large on our cultural landscape and we have a character of our own here that we quietly value.
I hope that doesn't sound too negative, it's not intended to be, we want to see the US heal.
