外刊精读第13期 | The Economist·自诩撒切尔夫人的妮基·黑利宣布

原文：自诩撒切尔夫人的妮基·黑利宣布竞选美国总统 

Nikki Haley’s presidential bid illustrates the Republicans’ problems

[1] When a new fighter enters the arena to go up against a legend, the crowd braces for a good show. But if the matchup is too lopsided the brawl is no fun. That was the sense when Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and Donald Trump’s UN ambassador, announced her presidential run on Twitter on February 14th (in advance of a launch event in Charleston the next day), becoming the first Republican formally to challenge her former boss. Ms Haley climbs into the ring as a lightweight. But her candidacy helps illustrate the problems of the Republican Party and the nature of the coming contest.

[1]当一名新战士进入竞技场对抗传奇人物时，人群准备看一场精彩的表演。但如果比赛太不平衡，争斗就不好玩了。当南卡罗来纳州前州长、唐纳德·特朗普的联合国大使尼基·黑利于2月14日（第二天在查尔斯顿的发布会之前）在推特上宣布她的总统竞选时，成为第一位正式挑战前老板的共和党人的时候，这就是我说的意思。Haley女士以轻量级的人爬进了拳击场。但她的候选资格有助于说明共和党的问题和即将到来的竞选的性质。

[2] For one thing, it shows that Mr Trump will face competition. Other, weightier contenders have been limbering up, writing books in readiness for the fight. Mike Pence, the former vice-president, and Mike Pompeo, CIA director and then secretary of state under Mr Trump, have both recently produced memoirs. And the man shaping up as the most formidable challenger, Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, is due to publish his “blueprint for America’s revival” on February 28th. A crowded field suits Mr Trump (it helped him secure his party’s nomination in 2016). That is no doubt why he has said, patronizingly, that Ms Haley “should definitely run”.

[2]一方面，这表明特朗普先生将面临竞争。其他更重的竞争者一直在努力工作，写书为战斗做好准备。前副总统迈克·彭斯和中央情报局局长、时任特朗普先生领导下的国务卿迈克·蓬佩奥最近都制作了回忆录。作为最强大的挑战者，佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯将于2月28日公布他的“美国复兴蓝图”。一个拥挤的竞技场适合特朗普先生（这帮助他在2016年获得了该党的提名）。毫无疑问，这就是为什么他居高临下地说，Haley女士“绝对应该参选”。

[3] Like many other potential candidates—and the party as a whole, which tied itself to a person rather than ideas—Ms Haley has been bruised by association with Mr Trump. As governor she represented a different and less angry brand of Republicanism. After a white supremacist killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015 she campaigned to remove the confederate flag from the statehouse. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she took issue with Mr Trump’s distaste for foreigners and disrespect for women. Even after he swept her home state’s presidential primary in 2016 by double digits, she publicly reviled his cosiness with a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, condemned his plan to build a wall on the southern border and chided his character. She backed Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, and later Ted Cruz of Texas, for president instead.

[3]像许多其他潜在候选人——以及整个政党一样，它把自己与一个人而不是思想联系在一起——Haley女士因与Trump先生的联系而受到挫伤。作为州长，她代表了不同且不那么愤怒的共和党主义。2015年，一名白人至上主义者在查尔斯顿杀害了9名黑人教堂教徒后，她发起了从州议会大厦上拆除邦联旗帜的运动。作为印度移民的女儿，她对特朗普先生对外国人的厌恶和对女性的不尊重持异议。即使在2016年他以两位数横扫她的家乡州总统初选后，她公开谴责他与三K党前大巫师的亲密联系，谴责他在南部边境修建隔离墙的计划，并谴责了他的品格。相反，她支持佛罗里达州参议员马可·卢比奥和后来的德克萨斯州的泰德·克鲁兹竞选总统。

[4] But in 2016, when Mr Trump tapped her to be the country’s ambassador to the UN, she made a Faustian bargain: the foreign-policy post would pad her résumé even if it meant aligning herself with Trumpism. At the UN she did not share her boss’s fondness for authoritarianism. She called herself “a bull in a china shop”; she announced sanctions on Russia, only for the administration to say she’d spoken out of turn. Yet her criticism of Mr Trump subsided. Her resignation, after two years, was marked by accolades from the president. She was the rare official to cross him and leave the administration nickname-less.

[4]但在2016年，当特朗普先生任命她担任该国驻美国大使时，她提出了一个浮士德式的（只顾眼前利益的）协议：外交政策职位将填充她的简历，即使这意味着与特朗普主义保持一致。在家里，她没有赞同她老板对专制主义的喜爱。她称自己为“瓷器店里的公牛”；她宣布了对俄罗斯的制裁，但政府却说她说话太出格。然而，她对特朗普先生的批评平息了。两年后，她辞职的时候得到了总统的赞誉。她是罕见的与他作对但是却能够全身而退（没有留下外号）的官员。