Trump 2020

川普2020

Donald Trump launches a familiar-sounding re-election campaign

唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)发起了一场耳熟能详的连任竞选

Identity politics, with a focus on guns, crime and immigration, is likely to dominate

以枪支、犯罪和移民为重点的认同政治很可能占据主导议题

TO DESCRIBE THE event President Donald Trump held in Orlando’s Amway Centre on June 18th as his re-election campaign launch does not do justice to its strangeness. It would also be only narrowly true, because he has never stopped campaigning. Since filing his re-election papers over two years ago, on the day he took office, Mr Trump has held over 50 “MAGA rallies” across the country, revelling in the adulation of his devoted fans. This week’s event, in the crowded, but not completely full, home of the Orlando Magic basketball team, was merely an extravagant example.

6月18日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在奥兰多的安利中心举办了一场活动，称其为自己的连任竞选活动，但这一活动的怪异之处并不合理。但他说是就是吧，因为他从未停止过竞选活动。自两年前特朗普上任之日提交竞选连任文件以来，他已在美国各地举行了50多次“MAGA集会”，陶醉于他忠实粉丝的奉承。本周在奥兰多魔术篮球队(Orlando Magic basketball team)主场举行的活动虽然拥挤，但并不完全座无虚席，这只是一个奢侈的例子。

词汇

Adulation/奉承；谄媚

 

As always, Mr Trump opened with a shout-out to the independent witnesses to his pending performance, “the fake news”. (Outside the arena, a Trump supporter would shortly become the first of the new campaign to be arrested for attacking a journalist.) The president then launched into the improbable balancing act—extreme triumphalism mingled with extreme grievance—that represents both his state of mind and his political method.

和往常一样，特朗普一开始就向独立证人大声疾呼自己即将上演的“假新闻”(the fake news)。(在舞台外，一名特朗普的支持者不久将成为新竞选团队中因袭击记者而被捕的第一人。)随后，总统开始了一种不可思议的平衡举措——极端的必胜主义与极端的不满交织在一起——这既代表了他的思想状态，也代表了他的政治方法。

词汇

Pending/未决定的；行将发生的

Improbable/不大可能的，未必确实的

Triumphalism/必胜信念；必胜心态

Mingle/交织；混合

Grievance/不满，不平

 

He claimed to have “accomplished more than any other president” in his first two and a half years. Much of what he offered in support of that claim was dubious. He exaggerated how much border wall he is building to keep Mexicans out; he falsely represented the size of the tax cuts he signed; he repeated his mischaracterisation of tariffs as a cost on Chinese exporters, not American consumers, and so on.

他声称，在他上任的头两年半里，他取得了“比任何一位总统都要多的成就”。他为支持这一主张所提供的许多东西都是可疑的。他夸大了他正在修建多少边境墙来阻止墨西哥人进入;他错误地陈述了他签署的减税措施的规模;他重复了他的错误描述，即关税是中国出口商的成本，而不是美国消费者的成本，等等。

词汇

Dubious/可疑的；无把握的

 

He claimed to have meanwhile been labouring “under circumstances that no president has had to deal with before…the great and illegal witch-hunt”. The Mueller investigation unearthed a lot of evidence of malfeasance by the president. Yet far from being hounded, he has in fact faced remarkably little comeuppance. His Democratic opponents are averse to taking up articles of impeachment, as previous opposition politicians might have done.

与此同时，他声称自己一直在“前所未有的情况下努力……进行大规模非法的政治迫害”。穆勒的调查发现了大量总统渎职的证据。然而，他非但没有受到追捕，实际上几乎没有受到什么惩罚。他的民主党对手不愿接受弹劾条款，就像以前的反对党政客可能会做的那样。

词汇

witch-hunt/政治迫害

malfeasance/渎职，违法行为

hound/追捕

comeuppance/因果报应，应得的惩罚

impeachment/弹劾；控告

Mr Trump did not thank them for their restraint. “Our radical Democrat opponents are driven by hatred, prejudice and rage,” he cried. “They want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country.” To be pro-Trump is to be a patriot, to oppose him treason. It was nearly an hour into his prepared speech before he turned to the economy, including growth of 3% in the first quarter, rising wages and the lowest unemployment rate for half a century.

特朗普没有感谢他们的约束。“我们的激进民主党对手被仇恨、偏见和愤怒所驱使，”他痛斥道，“他们想摧毁你们，他们想摧毁我们的国家。“支持特朗普就是爱国者，反对他即为叛国贼。在他准备好的演讲进行了将近一个小时后，他转向了经济问题，包括第一季度3%的经济增长率、不断上涨的工资和半个世纪以来最低的失业率。

词汇

Hatred/  憎恨；怨恨；敌意

Patriot/爱国者

Treason/逆反；叛国

It may contravene James Carville’s maxim, but Mr Trump’s re-election campaign is not primarily about the economy. That is partly a reflection of his character, because his sense of grievance swamps his feelings of triumph. But it is also tactical. The idea that elections are decided by the state of the economy rests on an assumption that there is a critical mass of swing voters, persuadable by either side. And that mass had been dwindling for years, owing to partisanship, even before Mr Trump’s extreme divisiveness accelerated its demise. Only 51% of Americans approve of his performance on the economy, despite its rude health—and the economy is easily his strongest measure. His overall approval rating has rarely reached 46%, the share of the popular vote he won in 2016; it is now a couple of points below that. He is the only president never to have reached 50% since Gallup began polling on the issue.

这可能违背了詹姆斯•卡维尔(James Carville)的格言，但特朗普的连任竞选主要与经济无关。这在一定程度上反映了他的性格，因为他的委屈感淹没了他的胜利感。但这也是一种战术。选举由经济状况决定的观点基于这样一种假设，即存在大量关键的拿捏不定的选民，任何一方都能说服他们。而且，由于党派之争，这一群体多年来一直在减少，甚至在特朗普的极端分裂政策加速了这一群体的消亡之前（已经在大量减少）。只有51%的美国人支持他在经济上的表现，尽管美国的状况在衰落——而经济发展无疑是他最有力的竞选论证。他的总体支持率很少达到46%，这是他在2016年赢得的普选份额;现在比这低了几个点。自盖洛普民意调查开始以来，他是唯一一位支持率从未达到50%的总统。

词汇

Tactical/战术的；策略的

Dwindling/减少，变小

These poor numbers make it hard to see Mr Trump winning any state he lost in 2016. To win again he must therefore walk the same path to an electoral college majority he trod that year—through Florida, Ohio and a trio of formerly Democratic rustbelt states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The fact that all have lots of older white people, his most reliable constituency, is why he remains competitive, despite his low ratings. Yet he has a major worry. While Florida and Ohio are becoming more Republican, the more northerly states appear to be reverting to the Democrats. And they are doing so, results in the mid-terms suggested, because the working-class voters Mr Trump recruited from the left in 2016 are cooling on him.

这些糟糕的数字使得特朗普很难赢得他在2016年失去的任何一个州。因此，为了再次获胜，他必须走他当年走过的那条路，即通过佛罗里达州、俄亥俄州以及密歇根州、宾夕法尼亚州和威斯康星州这三个前民主党“锈带（衰退地带）”州，赢得选举团的多数席位。尽管他的支持率很低，但所有这些州都有很多年长的白人选民，这是他最可靠的支持者，这也是他保持竞争力的原因。然而，他有一个主要的担忧。虽然佛罗里达州和俄亥俄州越来越倾向于共和党，但更北部的州似乎正在回归民主党。中期选举结果显示，他们正在这么做，因为特朗普在2016年从左翼招募的工人阶级选民对他的态度正在降温。

词汇

tread/踩，践踏；行走【过去式 trod过去分词 trodden 或 trod现在分词 treading】

Four years ago he wooed them with a combination of paternalistic economic promises and white identity politics. Only the second of these may now be available to him. Having failed to provide universal free health care, bring back coal-mining and regenerate long-shuttered factory towns, among other unlikely pledges, he is now struggling to repeat them. (Mr Trump’s recent vow to unveil a new health-care plan “in about two months” carried a hint of desperation.)

四年前，他以家长式的经济承诺和白人身份政治相结合的方式向他们示好。现在，他可能只有第二种选择。在未能提供 全民免费医疗、恢复煤炭开采、重建长期关闭的工业城镇等不太可能的承诺之后，他现在正努力重复这些承诺。(特朗普最近誓言“大约两个月后”公布一项新的医疗保健计划，带有一丝绝望的意味。)

词汇

Woo/求爱；恳求

Paternalistic/家长式作风的

coal-mining/挖煤；采矿业

Mr Trump may yet find a way to fill this void. A trade deal with China or a cut in illegal immigration could help. Yet it is likely that identity politics, in the form of fierce rhetoric on guns, crime and immigration, will dominate his campaign. Mr Trump warmed up for his appearance in Orlando by vowing to round up “millions of illegal aliens”—starting “next week”. He also refused to retract his demand for five black teenagers convicted of assaulting and raping a jogger in Central Park to be executed—though they were exonerated by DNA evidence and freed 17 years ago. Outside the Amway Centre a white chauvinist crew called the Proud Boys flashed “white power” signs at reporters.

特朗普或许还会找到填补这一空白的方法。与中国达成贸易协议或减少非法移民可能会有所帮助。然而，身份政治——以枪支、犯罪和移民问题上的激烈言辞——很可能将主导他的竞选。特朗普为自己在奥兰多的亮相做了热身，他发誓要从“下周”开始逮捕“数百万非法移民”。他还拒绝撤销对五名在中央公园袭击和强奸慢跑者的黑人青少年执行死刑的要求——尽管他们被DNA证据证明无罪，并在17年前获释。在安利中心外，一群白人沙文主义者向记者高举“白人力量”的标语，他们被称为“骄傲的男孩”。

Though these are early days, in short, it seems highly probable that Mr Trump will re-run his previous campaign. To hear him, it seems to be 2016 still. He persists in whipping up his supporters with denunciations of Hillary Clinton (“Lock her up!” they screamed in Orlando). By far the biggest uncertainty, perhaps the only one, therefore concerns who the Democrats send out to face him in her stead.

简而言之，尽管现在还处于早期阶段，但特朗普很有可能会再次竞选。听他说，现在似乎还是2016年。他坚持用对希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)的谴责(“把她关起来!”他们在奥兰多尖叫)。到目前为止，最大的不确定性，也许是唯一的不确定性，是民主党派谁去代替她面对他。

 

Betting markets put his chances of re-election at 50%, which reflects uncertainty about who the Democrats will pick. Though incumbency gives him a boost, absent some game-changing event Mr Trump would struggle against a strong opponent. His hopes may depend on the Democrats putting forward another dud, too weak or compromised to survive his attacks. Do not put it past them.

博彩市场认为他再次当选的几率为50%，这反映出民主党人会选择谁的不确定性。尽管在任给了他提振，但如果没有一些改变游戏规则的事件，特朗普将很难对付强大的对手。他的希望可能依赖于民主党提出的另一个无用方案，太过软弱或妥协，无法在他的攻击中存活下来。但可千万别小瞧民主党。