英国广播公司剖析：川普失去总统职位的原因和时间段

科学百姓 转译 英国广播公司 2020.11.8

让2020年大选彻底埋葬这样一个错误观念：2016年川普赢得总统选举只是美国历史的一个反常事故。

Let the 2020 election bury the mistaken notion once and for all that the 2016 election was a historical accident, an American aberration.

唐纳德-特朗普赢得了7000多万张选票，是美国历史上第二高的总票数。在全国范围内，他的得票率超过47%，看起来已经赢得了24个州，包括他心爱的佛罗里达州和德克萨斯州。

Donald Trump won more than 70 million votes, the second highest total in American history. Nationally, he has more than a 47% share of his vote, and looks to have won 24 states, including his beloved Florida and Texas.

他对这个国家的大片地区有着非同寻常的掌控力，在成千上万的支持者中，他塑造了一种发自内心的近乎邪教般的挚爱献身。入主白宫四年后，他的支持者翻阅选他当总统的得失考量，热情洋溢地给予点赞。

He has an extraordinary hold over large swathes of this country, a visceral connection that among thousands of supporters has brought a near cult-like devotion. After four years in the White House, his supporters studied the fine print of his presidency and clicked enthusiastically on the terms and conditions.

任何对他在2020年政治弱点的分析，也不得不承认他的政治上的强点。但是，他仍然被击败了，成为现代仅有的四位没有再获得第二个四年任期的现任总统之一。同时，他也成为有史以来第一个连续在两次选举中都输掉多数选民票数的总统。

Any analysis of his political weakness in 2020 also has to acknowledge his political strength. However, he was defeated, becoming one of only four incumbents in the modern era not to get another four years. Also he has become the first president to lose the popular vote in consecutive elections.

特朗普在2016年赢得总统职位，部分原因是他是一个打破规范的政治素人，敢说出以前没人会说得出口的话。

Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 partly because he was a norm-busting political outsider who was prepared to say what had previously been unsayable.

但特朗普在2020年失去总统职位，部分原因也是他是一个打破规范的政治素人，敢说出了以前没人会说得出口的话。

But Donald Trump also lost the presidency in 2020 partly because he was a norm-busting political outsider who was prepared to say what had previously been unsayable.

如同他四年前臭名昭著吹嘘的那样，他特朗普在第五大道上开枪射杀行人，大部分基本盘选民仍然会投票给他，但四年前支持他的一些其他人因为他的攻击性行为而离异了。

Though much of the Trump base might well have voted for him if he had shot someone on Fifth Avenue, his infamous boast from four years ago, others who supported him four years ago were put off by his aggressive behaviour.

在郊区尤其如此。拜登在之前克林顿夫人赢得的支持的基础上，在373个郊区县获得更好的支持率，帮助他夺回了宾夕法尼亚州、密歇根州和威斯康星州等锈带州，并使他获得了佐治亚州和亚利桑那州。郊区妇女对特朗普特别不感冒。

This was especially true in the suburbs. Joe Biden improved on Hillary Clinton's performance in 373 suburban counties, helping him claw back the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and enabling him to gain Georgia and Arizona. Donald Trump has a particular problem with suburban women.

我们在2020年总统大选中再次目睹了我们在2018年中期选举中看到的情况：更多受过高等教育的共和党人认为他的总统执政工作太不像是一个总统了，而这些共和党人在四年前投票给特朗普，本来还准备给他一个连任的机会的。这些共和党人之前就明白特朗普将是一个不拘一格的总统，但许多人最终觉得特朗普藐视如此多的传统和行为规范的方式令人不悦，而且常常令人反感。

We witnessed again in the 2020 presidential election what we had seen in the 2018 mid-term election - more highly-educated Republicans, some of whom had voted for Trump four years ago prepared to give him a chance, thought his presidency was too unpresidential. Though they understood he would be unconventional, many found the manner in which he defied so many customs and behavioural norms off-putting and often offensive.

这些共和党人开始对特朗普不满，源于他的攻击性、他在制造种族关系紧张上的火上浇油、他在推文中的种族主义言辞对有色人种的恶意诋毁、他时常不能充分谴责白人至上主义、他对美国传统盟友的贬抑攻击、以及对弗拉基米尔-普京等独裁强人的崇拜。

They were put off by his aggressiveness. His stoking of racial tensions. His use of racist language in tweets maligning people of colour. His failure, on occasions, to adequately condemn white supremacy. His trashing of America's traditional allies and his admiration for authoritarian strongmen, such as Vladimir Putin.

还有他说自己是 "一个非常稳定的天才" 等等奇怪吹嘘、他对阴谋论的宣传、以及他平时谈话措辞有时听起来更像犯罪黑帮头目，比如他把他的与联邦检察官达成认罪协议的前私人法务顾问科恩描述为 "一只老鼠"。（译者注：科恩长期是特朗普集团公司的二把手，职位叫行政副总裁。）

His strange boasts about being "a very stable genius" and the like. His promotion of conspiracy theories. His use of a lingua franca that sometimes made him sound more like a crime boss, such as when he described his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors, as "a rat".

还有批评者痛责他的独裁专制倾向，特朗普在选举后拒绝接受选举结果就是一个表现。

Then there was what critics derided as his creeping authoritarianism, seen after the election in his refusal to accept the result.

在这次竞选中，对我来说，一个有说服力的时刻是在匹兹堡，我与曾在2016年支持特朗普的豪恩斯坦在他家露台聊天。今年他把票投给了拜登。他告诉我："人们已经厌倦了，人们希望看到这个国家恢复正常。人民希望看到正派体面的品质。人们希望看到这种仇恨停止。人们希望看到这个国家团结起来。这些因素加起来会让拜登获得总统职位。"

A telling moment for me during this campaign came in Pittsburgh, when I chatted with Chuck Howenstein on the stoop of his terraced home. A Trump supporter in 2016, he voted for Joe Biden.

"People are tired," he told me. "They want to see normalcy back in this country. They want to see decency. They want to see this hatred stop. They want to see this country united. And that together is going to bring Joe Biden the presidency."

特朗普的一个政治问题是，他没能将自己的支持扩大到他的基本盘之外。他也没有努力这样做。2016年，他赢得了30个州的胜利，在执政工作中把自己当成只是保守派的总统、只是红色（共和党）美国地区的总统。作为过去100年来最刻意制造分裂的总统，他几乎没有尝试去争取蓝色（民主党）的美国地区，即当初投票给克林顿夫人的20个州。

A political problem for Trump was that he failed to expand his support beyond his core Trump base. Nor did he try hard to do so. In 2016, he won 30 states and often governed as if he was the president solely of conservative, red America. The most deliberately divisive president of the past 100 years, he made little attempt to woo blue America, the 20 states that voted for Hillary Clinton.

在经历了四年令人疲惫的岁月之后，许多选民只是希望有一个不招惹事的总统执政当局，一个将以更传统的方式行事的白宫主人。选民已经厌倦了幼稚的谩骂、丑陋的语言和无休止的对抗。他们希望回归某种正常状态。

After four exhausting years, many voters simply wanted a presidency they could have on in the background - an occupant of the White House who would behave in a more conventional manner. They had tired of the infantile name-calling, the ugly language and the ceaseless confrontation. They wanted a return to some kind of normalcy.

但2020年的选举不是2016年选举的重演。这一次他是现任者，而不是叛乱者。他需要辩护自己的业绩，包括他对冠状病毒爆发的不当处理，到选举日已经造成超过23万美国人死亡。在这个负面党争盛行的时代，政治行动往往是由对反对派的憎恨来驱动的，但与特朗普竞选的对手却不是一个像克林顿夫人这样的引起仇恨的人物。

But the 2020 election was not a re-run of the 2016 election. This time he was the incumbent, not the insurgent. He had a record to defend, including his mishandling of a coronavirus outbreak which by Election Day had killed more than 230,000 Americans. In this age of negative partisanship, where politics is often driven by loathing of the opposition, he was not pitted against a hate figure like Hillary Clinton.

拜登很难被妖魔化，这也是民主党建制派如此热衷于让他成为总统候选人的部分原因。这位77岁的中间派也完成了他受命的工作，那就是在铁锈地带夺回白人工人阶级选民。

Joe Biden was hard to demonise, which is partly why the Democratic establishment was so keen to have him as its presidential nominee. This 77-year-old centrist also did the job he was hired to do, which was to claw back white working class voters in the Rust Belt.

特朗普是什么时候失去总统职位的？

特朗普为什么会失去总统职位（presidency）这个问题，导致一个更有趣、更有争议的问题上：他什么时候失去总统职位的？

The question of why Trump lost the presidency turns also on a more interesting and arguable question - when did he lose the presidency?

是在2016年他获胜的时刻吗，那些投票给特朗普的人，部分是把投票给特朗普作为对华盛顿政治体制的抗议票，他们是不是立即产生了疑虑？毕竟，这些投了特朗普票的选民中的许多人从来没有指望他获胜。

Was it in the immediate aftermath of his victory in 2016, when people who had voted for Trump partly as a protest vote against the Washington political establishment instantly had misgivings? After all, many of those voters never expected him to win.

是在他担任总统的头24小时吗？他发表了 "美国悲惨世界（American Carnage）" 的就职演说，将美国描绘成一个近乎敌托邦（与乌托邦相反的极度恶劣的状况），关闭的工厂、留守的工人和从中产阶级家中 "掠夺" 的财富。还有，他对来参加他的就职典礼的人数大发牢骚（特朗普对来参加他就职典礼的人数远远少于来参加他的前任奥巴马总统就职典礼的人数深深不服，无数次到处宣讲是人们弄错了），他发誓要（不听顾问建议）继续使用推特。在他执政的第一个整天的日落时分，特朗普将寻求改变总统职位，而不是让总统职位改变他，这一点已经很明显。

Was it in the first 24 hours of his presidency, when he delivered his "American Carnage" inaugural address - which portrayed the country as a near dystopia of shuttered factories, left-behind workers and wealth "ripped" from middle class homes - before he ranted about the crowd size and vowed to continue using Twitter? By sundown of his first full day in charge, it had become clear that Donald Trump would seek to change the presidency more than the presidency changed him.

抑或是一个缓慢积累的过程，通过特朗普的这么多的丑闻，这么多的污言秽语，这么多的官员流失，这么多的混乱的雪球效应累积造成的吗？

Was it more cumulative, the snowball effect of so many scandals, so many slurs, so much staff turn-over, and so much chaos?

还是因为吞噬他总统职位的冠状病毒这个最大危机？在病毒抵达美国海岸之前，特朗普的政治生命征象是强大的。他在弹劾审判中幸存下来。他的支持率达到了执政以来的最高水平 —— 49%。他可以夸耀强大的经济，享有在职总统的优势 —— 两个通常能确保现任总统连任的因素。通常，总统选举的焦点是一个简单的问题：现在的国家是否比四年前更好？冠状病毒事件发生，以及随后的经济危机，几乎不可能做出国家比四年前更好这样的结论了。

Or was it as a result of the coronavirus, the biggest crisis that engulfed his presidency? Before the virus arrived on these shores, Trump's political vital signs were strong. He had survived his impeachment trial. His approval ratings matched the highest level it had been - 49%. He could boast a strong economy and the advantage of incumbency: the twin factors that usually secure a sitting president a second term. Often presidential elections turn on a simple question: is the country better off now than it was four years ago? After Covid hit, and the economic crisis that followed, it became almost impossible to make that case.

但如果说特朗普总统职位不可避免地被冠状病毒的弄糟，那是错误的。总统们往往会因为国家面临挑战而从搏击中变得更加强大。危机往往能带出伟大。富兰克林-罗斯福就是如此，他把美国从大萧条中解救出来，使他在政治上坚不可摧。乔治-布什最初对 "9-11" 袭击事件的反应也提升了他的人气，并帮助他赢得了第二个任期。所以，冠状病毒会干掉特朗普绝不是命中注定的。正是他对危机的拙劣处理，才导致了他的落马。

But it is wrong to say that the Trump presidency was inevitably doomed by the coronavirus. Presidents often emerge from national convulsions stronger. Crises can often bring out greatness. That was true for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose rescuing of America from the Great Depression made him politically unassailable. George W Bush's initial response to the attacks of September 11th also boosted his popularity, and helped him win a second term. So it was by no means preordained that Covid would finish Donald Trump. It was his botched handling of the crisis that contributed to his fall.

但是仍然要记住的是，特朗普直到最后仍然保持着政治生命力，尽管这个国家经历了100多年来最严重的公共卫生危机，经历了1930年代以来最大的经济危机，也经历了1960年代末以来最广泛的种族动荡。

Still, again it is worth remembering that Donald Trump remained politically viable up until the end, despite the country experiencing its worst public health crisis in more than a 100 years, its biggest economic crisis since the 1930s and also its most widespread racial turbulence since the late 1960s.

美国红色（共和党）的大部分地区，以及他获得掌控的保守主义运动的大部分人群，都会渴望他的重振回归。他将在未来多年继续成为保守运动的主导人物。特朗普主义最终可能会对美国保守主义产生和里根主义一样的变革效果。

Much of red America, and much of a conservative movement he came to dominate, will yearn for his return. He will continue to be the dominant figure in the conservative movement for years to come. Trumpism could end up having the same transformative effect on American conservatism as Reaganism.

即将离任的总统仍将是一个深深的驱动两极分化的人物，并可能在2024年再次参选。分裂的美国各州并没有突然间又变得团结起来，尤其是因为这么多美国人会对特朗普怀有如此不同的情绪，从虔诚挚爱到赤裸裸的仇恨。

The outgoing president will remain a deeply polarizing figure, and could run again in 2024. These disunited states have not suddenly become united again, not least because so many Americans will harbour such different emotions about Trump, ranging from devotion to abject hate.

这个国度肯定还没有听到了或看到了它历史上最不正统的这位总统的最后作为。

The country surely has not heard or seen the last of the most unorthodox president in its history.

参考资料链接

1. US election 2020: Why Donald Trump lost. 英国广播公司, 2020.11