I think the undertone of the reaction actually varies a lot. Some people are dismissive, but I think a lot of people find it frustrating because the approaches

I think the undertone of the reaction actually varies a lot. Some people are dismissive, but I think a lot of people find it frustrating because the approaches and solutions that work when a group the size of a small American city has full national sovereignty are generally not workable in the many-layered federal system with city, state, and federal jurisdictions each many times larger. Many people (Americans included) also fail to recognize that the majority of governance happens at the city and county level, then the state, then the least at the federal level. So if you have a situation where a policy only works if “everyone does it,” that’s basically impossible in the US. Individual cities can (and do) act on all sorts of lessons learned from around the world, especially including the Nordic countries, and point to them as inspiration all the time. But just because an Austin or a Seattle wants to copy what was done elsewhere does not mean they can: it may conflict with state or federal law they cannot change, or it may be unworkable when half the population of their economic area is distributed among dozens of small and entirely independent suburban governments. So in short, yes some Americans are dismissive of things that “worked in Iceland,” but I think most Americans are merely jaded that it’s much easier to accomplish significant change in city states and small countries, particularly with more homogeneous populations. It’s nothing against Iceland or any other country, except perhaps fatigue at people from those places wagging their fingers at America and saying how easy things are in a place completely unlike this one.