Shock and awe: It’s impossible to do justice to an entire continent, but I’ll do my best

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Washington: I’m Michael Koziol, and I’m your new North America correspondent. If you subscribe to this newsletter, you’ve probably read some of my stories over the past six weeks. There have been many.

It has been a whirlwind start. I flew into Los Angeles just as the California fires began devastating Altadena and the Pacific Palisades; it was dark when we landed, and difficult to tell anything was wrong. Only when I transited terminals at LAX, and inhaled the all-too-familiar smoky air as the sun rose, was it clear this was a disaster.

The smell of smoke in Los Angeles made it clear I had flown into a disaster.Credit: Loren Elliott/The New York Times

Then came the inauguration. While it was disappointing that Donald Trump moved the ceremony indoors, citing cold weather, it was still an honour to cover this momentous historical event alongside my departing colleague, Farrah Tomazin.

On such an occasion, an Australian can’t help but be awed by the scale. We know America is massive, but some things only hit you when you see them up close. Thousands attended each of the inaugural balls – the swanky parties that accompany the inauguration weekend. Getting into one of Trump’s rallies required lining up for hours in the freezing cold – which, somehow, tens of thousands were still willing to do. The security – police, Secret Service, US army – was like nothing you’ve ever seen.

Donald and Melania Trump at the Commander in Chief inauguration ball in Washington.Credit: AP

Trump then moved at lightning speed to smash apart the bureaucracy and America’s norms. He pardoned the January 6 rioters who sieged the US Capitol, gutted the foreign aid agency, tried to freeze all federal funding, banned transgender people from the military, threatened tariffs on his closest neighbours, announced plans to take over Gaza, unleashed Elon Musk’s efficiency squad, declared he trusted Vladimir Putin as he brought the Russian leader in from the cold, and generally pushed the limits of executive power to what some consider to be the point of constitutional crisis.

Amid this chaos, it is often difficult to know where to look. Perhaps that’s the point. Indeed, it’s trickier still to discern what Australians most want to know from this avalanche of activity. That’s my tightrope to navigate in the months ahead.

In between all that, there were four major aviation accidents – three of them deadly – including this week’s crash landing of a Delta Air Lines flight in Toronto. Somehow, all 80 people on board escaped alive, and most of them unscathed. It’s almost enough to make you believe in miracles.

And in Kentucky, Georgia and West Virginia, severe weather killed 14 people this week. Flooding in the south, fires in the west and snowstorms in the north-east: you begin to realise just how vast this country is, and how susceptible to the impacts of climate change.

It’s my job to do justice to the sheer size, variety and richness of American life, and to that end, I’ll be aiming to leave Washington DC often. With Donald Trump back in the Oval Office, it’s easy to forget that North America is much more than the president of the United States – even though it might feel that way right now.

A Delta flight crash landed at Toronto Pearson Airport.Credit: John Nelson

I’ve just returned from freezing but incredible Montreal, Canada, to take a look at the vexed subject of US-Canada relations under Trump. You can read a bit about that here, and there is more to come. Trump’s tariff threats have certainly upended what looked like a straightforward Canadian election in coming months.

Farrah is a tough act to follow. From celebrity defamation trials to tragic school shootings and last year’s remarkable election campaign, she got around the continent like a band on tour, always taking the time to interview real people about their everyday lives. You can read her farewell piece here.

On the flight over from Sydney, I read some of Christopher Hitchens’ masterful essays from the collection Arguably, published in 2011. In the introduction, which he wrote as death encroached, he reflected on his adopted home of America – how it did not always live up to its lofty ambitions, but for the most part, remained a force for good.

Perhaps that’s the goal for a foreign correspondent, too. It’s impossible to do justice to an entire continent, but I’ll do my best. Your feedback and ideas are most welcome.

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