出走半生 川普归来仍是总统？| 经济学人社论

A glitch-plagued chat with Elon Musk, live on Twitter, is an unconventional way to launch a presidential campaign. But with the entry of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, the race for the Republican nomination is now properly under way. The first states will not vote until January. Primaries are hard to predict, because it is expensive to conduct enough high-quality polls of primary voters in the key states. But, with that disclaimer over, one candidate has a huge, perhaps insurmountable, lead: Donald Trump. Mr Trump thus has a real chance of becoming America’s next president. Betting markets put his odds of returning to the White House at one in three.

佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯(Ron DeSantis)的总统竞选之路开端有些不寻常——他通过和埃隆马斯克在推特上的直播连线官宣参选，但过程状况频发。不管怎样，随着他的加入，共和党总统候选人的提名之战总算正式拉开序幕。投票最早的州也要等到明年1月才开始，初选结果难以预测，因为在各关键州开展保质保量的初选民调委实成本太高。话虽如此，有一位候选人正挟恢弘之势，似将一骑绝尘，大有机会成为下一任美国总统——他就是唐纳德·特朗普。根据博彩市场的预测，特朗普重返白宫的概率高达三分之一。

If you decided to pay less attention to Mr Trump after he lost in 2020, to preserve your sanity, you may be wondering how this can be the case. Parties do not usually stick with losers. Mr Trump led the Republicans to defeats in the 2018 midterm and the 2020 presidential elections. After he encouraged his supporters to “stop the steal”, some of them broke into Congress, with the result that one police officer died of a stroke and four committed suicide. He has since been found liable for sexual assault, too. Would the Republican Party really nominate him again?

2020年特朗普落选美国总统后，倘若你选择忽视他，眼不见为净，那你现在或许会纳闷，他此次胜选的可能性为何如此之高，因为通常而言，各政党都弃败将如敝履。在2018年中期选举和2020年总统选举中，共和党在特朗普的领导下两遭挫败；因特朗普怂恿支持者们“阻止盗窃（选举成果）”，一些人强行闯入国会大厦，（间接）致使一名警察死于中风、四名警察自杀身亡；此后特朗普还被裁定性侵。鉴于以上种种，共和党真的会再度提名他为总统候选人吗？

Yes, it probably would. In 2016 and in 2020 it made some sense to think of the Trump movement as a hostile takeover of the party. In 2023 it no longer does. He is the front-runner because a large proportion of Republicans really like him. His supporters have had their hands on the Republican National Committee for six years now. More than half of Republicans in the House of Representatives were elected for the first time since 2016, and therefore under Mr Trump’s banner. Almost all of those House and Senate Republicans who refused to make their peace with him have stood down or retired. Of the ten House members who voted to impeach Mr Trump in January 2021, only two are still there. They are outnumbered in their own caucus by more than 100 to 1.

是的，很有可能。如果说回到2016年和2020年，还有理由认为特朗普是异军突起、裹挟了共和党，到了2023年，局势已今非昔比。特朗普之所以成为领跑者，是因为大多数共和党人真心喜欢他。他的支持者执掌共和党全国委员会已有六年。众议院中一半以上的共和党人都是自2016年以来首次就任，也就是在特朗普的麾下当选。众议院和参议院中拒绝顺从他的共和党人几乎都已下台或退休。2021年1月投票弹劾特朗普的10名众议院共和党议员中，仅余两人在任，数量还不及众议院共和党团中特朗普支持者的百分之一。

Mr Trump’s campaign is also better organised than in either 2016 or 2020. Our analysis of the primaries shows how hard he will be to beat. He has a stunning lead: polling for The Economist by YouGov suggests Republican primary voters prefer Mr Trump to Mr DeSantis by 33 percentage points. He also has a big lead in endorsements from elected Republicans, which are usually a good predictor of what will happen. In 2016, the last time Mr Trump contested a primary, he won the early primaries with much less support than he has now.

特朗普的竞选活动比2016年、2020年都组织得好。我们对初选结果的分析表明，击败特朗普将异常艰难。特朗普遥遥领先，优势明显——本刊委托调研公司YouGov开展的民意调查显示，在共和党初选选民中，特朗普的支持率比德桑蒂斯高出33个百分点。在民选共和党人中，特朗普的支持率也大幅领先，通常可以由此推断选举走向。特朗普上一次参加初选是在2016年，当时他在早期初选中赢得的支持率远不及现在。

There are still Republican voters who would like an alternative—his 58% poll share means that close to half of primary voters must be open to choosing someone else. Yet the difficulties of co-ordinating the opposition to Mr Trump are daunting. People close to the Trump campaign say privately that the more candidates who enter the primary, dividing the field, the better for their candidate. Some big donors are giving money to non-Trump candidates on the condition that they drop out after South Carolina, an early primary, if told to do so. The idea is to engineer unity around a single non-Trump candidate, just as establishment Democrats united around Joe Biden in 2020 to stop Bernie Sanders, a leftist. Backroom manoeuvring by party bigwigs is less likely to work against Mr Trump, however, for the simple reason that he is the Republican establishment.

共和党选民中仍有人不想选特朗普——特朗普58%的民调支持率意味着，近一半的初选选民一定对其他人持开放态度。然而，想要让反对特朗普的行动形成合力是相当艰难的。与特朗普竞选团队关系密切的人士私下表示，参加初选的候选人越多，选票就越分散，对特朗普就越有利。一些大金主正许诺给特朗普的一些竞争对手一笔资金，条件是，他们要能够按要求在南卡罗来纳州（较早举行初选的州）初选之后退出选举。此举旨在集中力量支持特朗普的单个党内对手，就像2020年民主党建制派力捧乔·拜登以阻止左派的伯尼·桑德斯。然而，党内大佬们的幕后操纵不太可能对特朗普产生影响，原因很简单，那就是特朗普自己就属于党内建制派。

The way the primary calendar and pending legal cases against Mr Trump intersect is nightmarish. His trial for falsifying records in New York will get under way shortly after Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states vote. Neither this case nor any of the other investigations he faces are likely to be resolved by the time the primaries are over. It is therefore possible that the candidate of one of the two great parties could be subject to criminal charges when he is on the ballot. America has had badly behaved presidents before. It has never had one who is also the defendant in a criminal trial.

初选议程与特朗普的未决官司撞期，局面糟糕透顶。特朗普伪造商业记录的案件将于“超级星期二”后不久在纽约开审，届时正值十几个州的投票期。此案和他面临的其他调查都不太可能在初选结束之前得到解决。因此，作为两大政党之一的候选人，特朗普可能在投票期间面临刑事指控。美国以前也有过行为不端的总统，但从未有哪一位成为刑事审判的被告。

注释：“超级星期二”是一九八四年美国总统大选，两党举行参选人提名初选时，首次出现的专有名词。

You might think that, at this point, voters would abandon Mr Trump in large numbers. Maybe. But when, earlier this year, a jury found that he had sexually abused a woman 30 years ago, the verdict had no measurable effect on his poll numbers. Mr Trump, it turns out, is adept at persuading Republican voters that he is the real victim. Democrats, and plenty of America’s allies, think Mr Trump is a threat to democracy (as does this newspaper). His campaign is already turning this accusation back on the accuser: “The 2024 election”, a recent Trump campaign email announced, “will determine whether we can keep our Republic or whether America has succumbed to the dark forces of tyranny.” Those who accept that these are the stakes will probably overlook Mr Trump’s innumerable and obvious flaws.

您或许会觉得，到了那个时候，大量选民将会抛弃特朗普。这不无可能。然而，今年早些时候陪审团裁定特朗普曾在30年前性侵一名女性时，他的支持率未受明显影响。事实证明，特朗普很擅长促使共和党选民相信他才是真正的受害者。民主党及许多美国的盟友认为，特朗普是对民主的威胁（本刊同样持此看法）。特朗普的竞选团队已经反过来开始指责那些控诉他的人才是“对民主的威胁”。他们在最近的邮件中宣告：“2024年大选，将决定我们能否保住我们的共和政体，还是美国已经屈服于黑暗的暴政。”接受这套说辞的选民很可能会忽略特朗普身上众多明显缺陷。

Imagine, then, that it is November 2024 and Mr Trump and President Biden are having a rematch—the first since Dwight Eisenhower beat Adlai Stevenson back in the 1950s. Could Mr Trump win?

那么想象一下，现在是2024年11月，特朗普和拜登总统再次展开对决——此情此景在20世纪50年代德怀特·艾森豪威尔两度在总统大选中击败艾德莱·史蒂文森之后便从未有过。这一次，特朗普会赢吗？

The general election will surely be close. The electoral college gives Republicans a slight edge. The most recent landslide was 40 years ago. America has since become evenly divided politically and calcified because voters seldom switch sides. Mr Biden has some under-appreciated strengths, but he is no one’s idea of formidable. Were the country to enter a recession, Mr Trump’s chances would go up. Some mooted post-primary tactics intended to stop him, such as running a third-party candidate, smack of desperation: they could easily backfire and boost him further.

最终的大选双方大概率会是势均力敌。共和党可能在选举人团中稍占优势。毕竟，总统大选上一次有候选人取得压倒性胜利还是在40年前。从那以后，两党平分了美国的政治版图，且这种局面越来越固化，因为选民很少改变立场。不可否认，拜登有一些优势被低估了，但他远远算不上是坚不可摧。假如美国不幸进入衰退，特朗普的胜算还会增加。有些人提议在初选后采取手段阻挠特朗普，例如支持两党以外的候选人，这实属无奈之下出昏招，甚至可能适得其反给特朗普再添助力。

注释：

1、electoral college：选举人团。美国总统间接选举制度的产物，根据《美国宪法》及宪法修正案，美国各州公民先选出该州的选举人，再由选举人代表该州在大选中投票，所以美国总统并非公民直选。一个州为一个选举人团单位。各州的选举人数即该州在参众两院议员总人数。（来源：维基百科）

2、landslide：本意为泥石流，是美国政坛习语，代指在大选中取得压倒性的胜利。40年前，前总统里根在1984年的连任大选中赢得超过97%选举人票数。（来源：维基百科）

Prima Donald

张牙舞爪特朗普

All of which means that you should take seriously the possibility that America’s next president will be someone who would divide the West and delight Vladimir Putin; who accepts the results of elections only if he wins; who calls the thugs who broke into the Capitol on January 6th 2021 martyrs and wants to pardon them; who has proposed defaulting on the national debt to spite Mr Biden; and who is under multiple investigations for breaking criminal law, to add to his civil-law rap sheet for sexual assault. Anyone who cares about America, about democracy, about conservatism or about decency should hope that Mr DeSantis or one of the other non-Trump Republican candidates can defy the odds and beat him.

言及于此，美国下一任总统可能是这样一个人：他会分裂西方世界，让弗拉基米尔·普京喜笑颜开；他不接受任何选举结果，除非自己取得胜利；他把2021年1月6日袭击国会大厦的暴徒称为“殉道者”，还想赦免他们；他呼吁放任美国政府债务违约，只是为了让拜登难堪；他正在接受多项刑事犯罪的调查，而且已经有性侵的民事违法前科。所有关心美国的人，关心民主的人，关心保守主义的人，或者关心规矩和体面的人，都应当期望德桑蒂斯或其他共和党候选人能够排除万难，打败特朗普获得总统候选人提名。

注释：

1、Prima Donald是prima donna的谐音，后者是一个词组，意为：

a person who thinks they are very important because they are good at sth, and who behaves badly when they do not get what they want（妄自尊大而爱闹脾气者；恃才傲物者）

2、rap sheet：犯罪和刑拘记录，参考：https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/more-fbi-services-and-information/identity-history-summary-checks。

3、conservatism：保守主义，在美国共和党是保守主义政治的主要代表，在英国则是保守党。

4、defy the odds：在面临困难或不利局面的情况下，克服困难努力实现目标。

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