Vol.4 |The EconomistThe Trump presidency

Posted 2021-04-29 牧光一尘

导读：尽管美国鼓吹人人自由平等，却无法掩盖资本主义事实上的不平等。这篇文章揭示了美国政坛总统权力至高无上，甚至凌驾于真理之上的现象。由于对相关背景了解甚少，翻译中一定有纰漏之处，欢迎批评指正。

本文选自The Economist April 21st 2018，Leaders板块

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原文（手指滑动查看全文）及音频（©The Economist）

The Trump presidency 来自牧光一尘 00:00 07:12

The Trump presidency 

What has become of the Republican Party? It is organised around loyalty to one man—Donald Trump. That is dangerous.

Apr 19th 2018

ALL presidents, Republican and Democrat, seek to remake their party in their own image. Donald Trump has been more successful than most. From the start, the voters he mesmerised in the campaign embraced him more fervently than congressional Republicans were ready to admit. After 15 months in power, as our briefing explains, he has taken ownership of their party. It is an extraordinary achievement from a man who had never lived in Washington, DC, never held public office, who boasted of groping women and who, as recently as 2014, was a donor to the hated Democrats.

The organising principle of Mr Trump’s Republican Party is loyalty. Not, as with the best presidents, loyalty to an ideal, a vision or a legislative programme, but to just one man—Donald J. Trump—and to the prejudice and rage which consume the voter base that, on occasion, even he struggles to control. In America that is unprecedented and it is dangerous.

Already, some of our Republican readers will be rolling their eyes. They will say that our criticism reveals more about us and our supposed elitism than it does about Mr Trump. But we are not talking here about the policies of Mr Trump’s administration, a few of which we support, many of which we do not and all of which should be debated on their merits. The bigger, more urgent concern is Mr Trump’s temperament and style of government. Submissive loyalty to one man and the rage he both feeds off and incites is a threat to the shining democracy that the world has often taken as its example.

Not what, but how
Mr Trump’s takeover has its roots in the take-no-prisoners tribalism that gripped American politics long before he became president. And in the past the Oval Office has occasionally belonged to narcissists some of whom lied, seduced, bullied or undermined presidential norms. But none has behaved quite as blatantly as Mr Trump.

At the heart of his system of power is his contempt for the truth. In a memoir published this week (see Lexington) James Comey, whom Mr Trump fired as director of the FBI, laments “the lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organisation above morality and above the truth”. Mr Trump does not—perhaps cannot—distinguish between facts and falsehoods. As a businessman and on the campaign he behaved as if the truth was whatever he could get away with. And, as president, Mr Trump surely believes that his power means he can get away with a great deal.

When power dominates truth, criticism becomes betrayal. Critics cannot appeal to neutral facts and remain loyal, because facts are not neutral. As Hannah Arendt wrote of the 1920s and 1930s, any statement of fact becomes a question of motive. Thus, when H.R. McMaster, a former national security adviser, said (uncontroversially) that Russia had interfered in the election campaign, Mr Trump heard his words as unforgivably hostile. Soon after, he was sacked.

The cult of loyalty to Mr Trump and his base affects government in three ways. First, policymaking suffers as, instead of a coherent programme, America undergoes government by impulse—anger, nativism, mercantilism—beyond the reach of empirical argument. Mr Trump’s first year has included accomplishments: the passage of a big tax cut, a regulatory rollback and the appointment of conservative judges. But most of his policymaking is marked by chaos rather than purpose. He was against the Trans-Pacific trade deal, then for it, then against it again; for gun control, then for arming teachers instead.

Second, the conventions that buttress the constitution’s limits on the president have fallen victim to Mr Trump’s careless selfishness. David Frum, once a speechwriter for George W. Bush, lists some he has broken (and how long they have been observed): a refusal to disclose his tax return (since Gerald Ford), ignoring conflict-of-interest rules (Richard Nixon), running a business for profit (Lyndon Johnson), appointing relatives to senior posts in the administration (John F. Kennedy) and family enrichment by patronage (Ulysses S. Grant).

And third, Mr Trump paints those who stand in his way not as opponents, but as wicked or corrupt or traitors. Mr Trump and his base divide Republicans into good people who support him and bad people who do not—one reason why a record 40 congressional Republicans, including the House Speaker, Paul Ryan, will not seek re-election. The media that are for him are zealous loyalists; those that are not are branded enemies of the people. He has cast judicial investigations by Robert Mueller into his commercial and political links with Russia as a “deep-state” conspiracy. Mr Trump is reportedly toying with firing Mr Mueller or his boss in the Department of Justice. Yet, if a president cannot be investigated without it being counted as treason then, like a king, he is above the law.

The best rebuke to Mr Trump’s solipsism would be Republican defeat at the ballot box, starting with November’s mid-term elections. That may yet come to pass. But Mr Trump’s Republican base, stirred up by his loyal media, shows no sign of going soft. Polls suggest that its members overwhelmingly believe the president over Mr Comey. For them, criticism from the establishment is proof he must be doing something right.

Look up, look forwards and look in
But responsibility also falls to Republicans who know that Mr Trump is bad for America and the world. They feel pinned down, because they cannot win elections without Mr Trump’s base but, equally, they cannot begin to attempt to prise Mr Trump and his base apart without being branded traitors.

Such Republicans need to reflect on how speaking up will bear on their legacy. Mindful of their party’s future, they should remember that America’s growing racial diversity means that nativism will eventually lead to the electoral wilderness. And, for the sake of their country, they need to bring in a bill to protect Mr Mueller’s investigation from sabotage. If loyalty to Mr Trump grants him impunity, who knows where he will venture? Speaking to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 George Mason put it best: “Shall that man be above [justice], who can commit the most extensive injustice?”

The Trump presidency 川普总·统

What has become of the Republican Party? It is organised around loyalty to one man—Donald Trump. That is dangerous.共和党怎么了？它是因效忠着一个人——唐纳德·特朗普而组织起来的。而这是危险的。

ALL presidents, Republican and Democrat, seek to remake their party in their own image. Donald Trump has been more successful than most. （所有总统，无论是共和党人或是民主党人，都希望以自己的形象来重塑自己的政党。唐纳德·特朗普比大多数人都更成功。）From the start, the voters he mesmerised in the campaign embraced him more fervently than congressional Republicans were ready to admit. After 15 months in power, as our briefing explains, he has taken ownership of their party.（从一开始，他在竞选中所吸引的选民们比国会共和党人更加热情地认可他。经过15个月的执政，正如我们（经济学人）的简报所解释的那样，他已经拥有了共和党的所有权力。） It is an extraordinary achievement from a man who had never lived in Washington, DC, never held public office, who boasted of groping women and who, as recently as 2014, was a donor to the hated Democrats.（对于一个从未在华盛顿特区生活过，也从未担任过公职的人来说，这是一个了不起的成就，他曾吹嘘自己曾猥亵过女性，2014年（最近的一次）时，还是个是“被憎恨的”民主党人的捐款者。）

The organising principle of Mr Trump’s Republican Party is loyalty. Not, as with the best presidents, loyalty to an ideal, a vision or a legislative programme, but to just one man—Donald J. Trump—and to the prejudice and rage which consume the voter base that, on occasion, even he struggles to control. In America that is unprecedented and it is dangerous.（特朗普领导的共和党的组织原则是忠诚。不是像最好的总统那样，忠于理想、愿景或立法项目，而是忠于一个人——唐纳德·J·特朗普(Donald J.Trump)——以及有时甚至连他都难以控制的消耗选民基础的偏见和愤怒。在美国，这是前所未有的，也是危险的。）

Already, some of our Republican readers will be rolling their eyes. They will say that our criticism reveals more about us and our supposed elitism than it does about Mr Trump.（现在，我们的一些共和党读者将会向我们翻白眼。他们会说，我们的批评更多地揭示了我们和我们所谓的精英主义，而不是特朗普先生。） But we are not talking here about the policies of Mr Trump’s administration, a few of which we support, many of which we do not and all of which should be debated on their merits. （但我们不是在这里谈论特伦普政府的政策，我们支持其中的一些政策，其中许多我们不支持，所有的这些都应该就它们的成绩进行讨论。）The bigger, more urgent concern is Mr Trump’s temperament and style of government. Submissive loyalty to one man and the rage he both feeds off and incites is a threat to the shining democracy that the world has often taken as its example.（更大，更迫切的担忧是特鲁普的气质和政府作风。对一个人的顺从忠诚，以及他煽动并“从中受益”的愤怒，都是对这个世界常以身作则的光辉民主的威胁。）

 

Not what, but how不是“什么”，而是“怎样”
Mr Trump’s takeover has its roots in the take-no-prisoners tribalism that gripped American politics long before he became president. And in the past the Oval Office has occasionally belonged to narcissists some of whom lied, seduced, bullied or undermined presidential norms. But none has behaved quite as blatantly as Mr Trump.（特朗普的掌权源于在他成为总统之前一直支配美国政治的毫不妥协的部落主义。在过去，总统办公室偶尔属于自恋者，其中一些人撒谎、诱骗、恐吓，慢慢损害了总统的身份，但没有人表现得像特朗普那样明目张胆。）

部落主义，“tribalism”一词是用来描述基于血缘、生产关系、语言交流、族群等纽带所形成的社会群体之存在方式。美国的两党相争的政治格局则可以看成两个“政治部落”之间的博弈。

take-no-prisoners是（追求目标时）富于进取的，毫不妥协的意思。属于习惯用语。take no prisoners。 Prisoners就是在战争中抓到的士兵。Take no prisoners这个说法是出自一个神秘的军官。他在战争中命令他手下的士兵杀死那些已经举手投降的敌军。所以，take no prisoners这个习惯用语就是指一个对别人很强硬的人，一个很难对付的人。

At the heart of his system of power is his contempt for the truth. In a memoir published this week (see Lexington) James Comey, whom Mr Trump fired as director of the FBI, laments “the lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organisation above morality and above the truth”.（他权力体系的核心是对真相的蔑视。本周出版的一本回忆录中，被特鲁普解雇的联邦调查局(FBI)局长詹姆斯·科米(James Comey)，叹道，“在任何事情上都撒了谎，或大或小，都是为某种忠诚准则服务的，这些行为把组织凌驾于道德之上，事实之上。） Mr Trump does not—perhaps cannot—distinguish between facts and falsehoods. As a businessman and on the campaign he behaved as if the truth was whatever he could get away with. And, as president, Mr Trump surely believes that his power means he can get away with a great deal.（特朗普并没有——或许不能——区分事实和谎言。作为一名商人，在竞选中，他表现得好像真相就是他能逃避的一切。作为总统，特朗普肯定相信，他的权力意味着他可以更容易受到轻微的惩罚。）

When power dominates truth, criticism becomes betrayal. Critics cannot appeal to neutral facts and remain loyal, because facts are not neutral. （当权力主宰时事实，批评就变成了背叛。批评人士无法诉说中立的事实并保持忠诚，因为事实不是中立的。）As Hannah Arendt wrote of the 1920s and 1930s, any statement of fact becomes a question of motive. Thus, when H.R. McMaster, a former national security adviser, said (uncontroversially) that Russia had interfered in the election campaign, Mr Trump heard his words as unforgivably hostile. Soon after, he was sacked.（正如汉娜·阿伦特(Hannah Arendt)在20世纪20年代和30年代所写的那样，任何事实陈述都会成为一个动机问题。因此，当前国家安全顾问麦克马斯特(H.R.McMaster)表示俄罗斯(毫无争议地)干预了选举活动时，特朗普听到他的话后，充满了不可饶恕的敌意。不久之后，他就被解雇了。）

The cult of loyalty to Mr Trump and his base affects government in three ways. First, policymaking suffers as, instead of a coherent programme, America undergoes government by impulse—anger, nativism, mercantilism—beyond the reach of empirical argument.（对特朗普及其支持者的忠诚崇拜从三个方面影响了政府。首先，政策制定受到影响，美国政府的“经营”常常凭“冲动”行事——愤怒、本土主义、重商主义——超出了经验论证的范围，而不是一个连贯的计划。） Mr Trump’s first year has included accomplishments: the passage of a big tax cut, a regulatory rollback and the appointment of conservative judges. （特朗普的第一年取得了一些成就：大幅减税、监管措施的恢复以及任命保守派法官。）But most of his policymaking is marked by chaos rather than purpose. He was against the Trans-Pacific trade deal, then for it, then against it again; for gun control, then for arming teachers instead.（但他的大部分决策都是混乱的，而不是目的性的。他反对跨太平洋贸易协定，然后支持它，然后又再次反对它；支持枪支管制，却又转而支持武装教师。）

Second, the conventions that buttress the constitution’s limits on the president have fallen victim to Mr Trump’s careless selfishness. David Frum, once a speechwriter for George W. Bush, lists some he has broken (and how long they have been observed): a refusal to disclose his tax return (since Gerald Ford), ignoring conflict-of-interest rules (Richard Nixon), running a business for profit (Lyndon Johnson), appointing relatives to senior posts in the administration (John F. Kennedy) and family enrichment by patronage (Ulysses S. Grant).(其次，支持宪法对总统的限制的惯例已经成为特朗普毫不在意的自私的牺牲品。曾为布什撰写演讲稿的大卫·弗鲁姆，列举了总统所犯的一些错误(以及他们被观察了多久)：拒绝披露纳税申报表(自杰拉德·福特)以来)，无视利益冲突规则(理查德·尼克松)，经营一家营利性企业(林登·约翰逊)，任命亲属担任政府高级职位(约翰·F·肯尼迪)，收赞助使家庭致富(尤利西斯S.格兰特)。

And third, Mr Trump paints those who stand in his way not as opponents, but as wicked or corrupt or traitors. Mr Trump and his base divide Republicans into good people who support him and bad people who do not—one reason why a record 40 congressional Republicans, including the House Speaker, Paul Ryan, will not seek re-election.（第三，特朗普把那些阻碍他的人描绘成邪恶、腐败或叛徒，而不是对手。特朗普和他的亲信将共和党人分为支持他的好人和不支持他的坏人——这也是为什么创纪录的40名国会共和党人，包括众议院议长保罗·瑞安(Paul Ryan)，不会寻求连任的原因之一。） The media that are for him are zealous loyalists; those that are not are branded enemies of the people. He has cast judicial investigations by Robert Mueller into his commercial and political links with Russia as a “deep-state” conspiracy. （支持特朗普的媒体是狂热的忠诚者；那些不人支持他的则被认定为人民的敌人。他将罗伯特·穆勒(RobertMueller)关于他与俄罗斯的商业和政治联系的调查进行司法侦查，认为这是一个“极其严重的”阴谋。）Mr Trump is reportedly toying with firing Mr Mueller or his boss in the Department of Justice. Yet, if a president cannot be investigated without it being counted as treason then, like a king, he is above the law.（据报道，特朗普正在玩弄似地准备解雇穆勒或他在司法部的上司。然而，如果总统不被视为叛国就不能被调查，那么，他就像国王一样，凌驾于法律之上。）

The best rebuke to Mr Trump’s solipsism would be Republican defeat at the ballot box, starting with November’s mid-term elections.（对特朗普唯我主义的最好指责将是从11月份的中期选举开始，共和党在投票箱中的失败。） That may yet come to pass. But Mr Trump’s Republican base, stirred up by his loyal media, shows no sign of going soft. Polls suggest that its members overwhelmingly believe the president over Mr Comey. For them, criticism from the establishment is proof he must be doing something right.
这种情况可能还会发生。但特朗普的共和党大本营，在他的忠实媒体的煽动下，并没有表现出软弱的迹象。民意调查显示，其成员压倒性地相信总统而不是科米。对他们来说，来自当权者的批评证明他一定做了正确的事情。

Look up, look forwards and look in抬头看，向前看，往内看
But responsibility also falls to Republicans who know that Mr Trump is bad for America and the world. They feel pinned down, because they cannot win elections without Mr Trump’s base but, equally, they cannot begin to attempt to prise Mr Trump and his base apart without being branded traitors.
但责任也落到那些知道特朗普对美国和世界不利的共和党人身上。他们感到被限制住了，因为他们不能在没有特朗普的大本营的情况下赢得选举，但同样的，他们如果开始试图将特朗普和他的大本营分开，就会被标榜为叛徒。

Such Republicans need to reflect on how speaking up will bear on their legacy. Mindful of their party’s future, they should remember that America’s growing racial diversity means that nativism will eventually lead to the electoral wilderness. （这样的共和党人需要反思，如何表达将会影响他们的遗产。考虑到他们党的未来，他们应该记住，美国日益增长的种族多样性意味着本土主义最终将导致选举不能掌权。）And, for the sake of their country, they need to bring in a bill to protect Mr Mueller’s investigation from sabotage. If loyalty to Mr Trump grants him impunity, who knows where he will venture?（为了他们的国家，他们需要提交一份法案来保护穆勒的调查免受破坏。如果对特朗普的忠诚让他逍遥法外，谁知道他还会往哪冒险？）Speaking to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 George Mason put it best: “Shall that man be above [justice], who can commit the most extensive injustice?”（在1787的宪法大会中，George Mason提出了一个最好的观点：“如果一个人凌驾于正义之上，谁还敢犯下最恶劣的非正义的行为？”）

 

单词积累

mesmerize|ˈmezməraɪz|VERB (British English also -ise)[动词 + 名词短语][常用被动态]  to have such a strong effect on you that you cannot give your attention to anything else 迷住；吸引

elitism|eɪˈli:tɪzəm; ɪ-|NOUN(often disapproving) a way of organizing a system, society, etc. so that only a few people (= an elite ) have power or influence 精英统治；精英主义

submissive|səbˈmɪsɪv|ADJ too willing to accept sb else's authority and willing to obey them without questioning anything they want you to do 唯命是从的；顺从的；驯服的；听话的

incite |ɪnˈsaɪt|VERB~ sb (to sth) | ~ sth to encourage sb to do sth violent, illegal or unpleasant, especially by making them angry or excited 煽动；鼓动

blatant|ˈbleɪtnt|ADJ (disapproving) (of actions that are considered bad 坏的行为) done in an obvious and open way without caring if people are shocked 明目张胆的；公然的

empirical|ɪmˈpɪrɪkl|ADJ[常用于名词前] based on experiments or experience rather than ideas or theories 以实验（或经验）为依据的；经验主义的

mercantilism |mɜ:ˈkæntɪlɪzəm; 美 mɜ:rˈk-|NOUN the economic theory that trade increases wealth 重商主义，商业本位（认为商业可增加财富）

rebuke|rɪˈbju:k|VERB[动词 + 名词短语][常用被动态] ~ sb (for sth/for doing sth) (formal) to speak severely to sb because they have done sth wrong 指责；批评

 

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