迈克·彭斯头上的那只苍蝇
Mike Pence’s Debate Performance Bugged Me Out
弗兰克·布鲁尼
2020年10月9日
We need to talk about that fly.
我们有必要谈谈那只苍蝇。
It was a fly, wasn’t it? If not, it was a bug doing an ace interpretation of a fly, and about two-thirds of the way through the debate in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night, it took up residence in Vice President Mike Pence’s hair, a smudge of black against a shock of white, where it lingered for a few minutes before undoubtedly realizing that there was warmer, more demonstrably human real estate to be had.
那是只苍蝇，是吧？如果不是的话，那就是只以一流方式演绎苍蝇的小昆虫，在周三晚上的盐湖城辩论进行到大约三分之二时，它落在了副总统迈克·彭斯(Mike Pence)的头上，给一头浓密的白发染上一个黑色污点。它在那里逗留了几分钟后，毫无疑问地意识到存在更暖和、更可被证明是活人的地方。
Off it flew, and on Pence droned. He never exhibited any awareness — not the subtlest glance upward, not the slightest flinch or twitch — that his head had been colonized. I first found this strange and then realized it was everything. Pence’s years of obsequiousness to Donald Trump had beaten all sensitivity and capacity for revulsion out of him.
它在彭斯不停地唠叨时飞走了。彭斯对苍蝇在他头上入住没有表现出任何意识——眼球没有可觉察地向上翻，没有最轻微的避开或晃头的动作。我起初觉得这很奇怪，后来意识到这意味着一切。彭斯对唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)多年的谄媚，已让他失去了所有的敏锐和感到厌恶的能力。
How could he be expected to register or exile an itty-bitty pest when he routinely puts up with a great big one? That fly was some crazy combo of metaphor, visitation and karmic joke.
当他常规地怂恿一个大害虫时，我们怎么能指望他会注意到或会赶走一只小害虫呢？那只苍蝇是隐喻、灾祸和因果报应笑话的某种荒唐组合。
At this point, Pence is the poster boy for unflappability, an automaton of reflexive kudos for Trump in the key of smarmy. He’s bloodless. He’s ice. Add that constipated half-smile of his and he’s weirdly riveting.
在这一点上，彭斯是处变不惊的典型，像机器人那样用谄媚的口吻反射性地赞美特朗普。他没有热血，无异于一座冰雕。但他那种仿佛在便秘的似笑非笑，却让他离奇地吸引人。
Fortunately for Joe Biden and Democrats in general, Senator Kamala Harris is plenty steely herself, while also exhibiting a discernible pulse. I think she had a very good night. She was too scripted, yes, and painfully evasive when it came to a question about whether Biden would or should pack the Supreme Court.
对乔·拜登(Joe Biden)和更广泛的民主党人来说，幸运的是，参议员卡玛拉·哈里斯(Kamala Harris)本人在辩论中也表现得非常冷冰冰，不过她同时也表现出让人能觉察到的脉搏。我觉得她昨晚表现不错。是的，她太照本宣科了，而且当被问及拜登是否会或应该增加最高法院席位时，她令人痛苦地闪烁其词。
But she pushed back forcefully whenever Pence tried to paint her and Biden as radical leftists. She kept returning to the subject of Covid-19. She repeatedly reminded Americans of the Trump administration’s sustained effort to abolish Obamacare, at one point staring directly into the camera to explain what that means.
但每当彭斯试图把她和拜登描绘成激进的左翼分子时，她都给予了有力回击。她不断地回到新冠病毒的话题上。她一再提醒美国人特朗普政府为废除奥巴马医改所做的持续努力，其中一次她直接面对镜头解释这意味着什么。
“If you have a pre-existing condition — heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer — they’re coming for you,” she said. “If you love someone who has a pre-existing condition, they’re coming for you. If you are under the age of 26 on your parents’ coverage, they’re coming for you.”
“如果你有宿疾——心脏病、糖尿病、乳腺癌——他们是冲你而来的，”她说。“如果你爱的人有宿疾，他们是冲你而来的。如果你是仍受父母医保计划覆盖到的不满26岁的子女，他们是冲你而来的。”
She assailed Trump’s character on all the right fronts and with all the right passion, so that Pence’s assurances of the president’s integrity seemed as pallid as the rest of him. Was Pence marble or man? The bug, I’m confident, shared my bafflement.
她以适得其所的强烈情感抨击了特朗普性格中所有可抨击的方面，以至于彭斯对总统诚信的保证就像他本人的其他部分一样苍白无力。彭斯是块大理石还是个大活人？我确信，那只苍蝇和我一样地困惑。
And his evasions were the rival of hers. He never did offer any explanation of how the United States ended up the world leader in recorded deaths related to the coronavirus. He instead tried to suggest that Harris, in calling out the country’s failures on that score, was insulting Americans.
彭斯对问题的避而不答与哈里斯不相上下。他从未对美国是怎样在与新冠病毒相关的死亡上拥有世界第一的记录做出任何解释。相反，他试图暗示哈里斯指出美国在这方面的失败是对美国人的侮辱。
No, Vice President Pence. She was insulting you and your boss.
不是美国人，彭斯副总统。她侮辱的是你和你的老板。
It was a memorable debate even apart from the insect. (Now there’s a sentence I never imagined writing.) It was historic: Harris is the first woman of color on the presidential ticket of one of America’s two major parties. Her status as a trailblazer was openly acknowledged, and it informed — and gave extra force to — her disapproval of Pence when he wouldn’t acknowledge implicit racial bias in policing.
即使不提苍蝇，这也是一场令人难忘的辩论。（我从未想过会写下这样的句子。）这场辩论可谓名垂青史：哈里斯是美国两大政党总统候选人选票上的首位有色人种女性。她的开路先锋身份在辩论中得到了公开的承认，她的有色人种身份让她对彭斯不愿承认警察中存在隐性种族偏见时表示的反对具有额外的力量。
She and Pence were separated not only by 12 feet but by plexiglass shields, which called to mind sneeze guards, conjured thoughts of salad bars and prompted me to wonder which ingredient each of the candidates represented. (I’m going with cottage cheese for Pence.)
她和彭斯之间不仅相隔12英尺（约3.7米），还有有机玻璃隔板。这种隔板让人想起喷嚏防护罩，让人想起沙拉吧，我的思绪不禁转到这两位候选人代表的沙拉吧里的配料上。（我觉得彭斯代表白软干酪。）
The Pence camp had resisted these droplet dams — which, truth be told, many public health experts said were of questionable use — but given how freely the coronavirus had been permitted to rampage through the White House, the Harris camp would have been justified in demanding that Pence debate from the inside of a giant Ziploc bag.
彭斯阵营曾抵制这些挡唾沫的屏障——实话说，许多公共卫生专家对这种防疫方法持怀疑态度，但考虑到新冠病毒已获许在白宫肆意横行，即使哈里斯阵营要求彭斯在辩论时呆在一个巨大的密封塑料袋里也是合理的。
Harris and Pence were squaring off little more than a week after Trump and Biden had, and one overarching question was how far they’d depart from and how fully they’d redeem that fiasco. The answer: very far and almost fully. In the context of the Trump-Biden debate, which had all the calm, dignity and exalted purpose of a fraternity hazing, this was practically a poetry reading.
哈里斯与彭斯的面对面发生在特朗普与拜登的辩论一周刚过。一个重要的问题是，哈里斯与彭斯的辩论与前面那场可耻的表演会有多大的不同，他们会在多大程度上挽回上次的尴尬结局。答案是：非常大，几乎完全不同。特朗普和拜登的辩论与美国大学新生加入兄弟会时遭受戏弄的冷静、尊严和崇高目的有一比，在这种背景下，这次的辩论几乎像是一个诗歌朗诵会。
That’s not to say it was polite. On the subject of the pandemic, Harris unsparingly attacked Trump and Pence, the head of the administration’s coronavirus task force, saying, “The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”
这并不是说双方都很礼貌。哈里斯在新冠病毒大流行的问题上毫不留情地攻击了特朗普和彭斯，后者是政府新冠病毒工作组负责人。哈里斯说，“美国人民目睹了我们国家历史上历届总统政府的最大失败。”
And Pence kept talking over the moderator, Susan Page of USA Today, ignoring her alerts that his two minutes were up so that he could commandeer more time than Harris got. Page was left to sputter endlessly, “Thank you, Vice President Pence. Thank you, Vice President Pence. Thank you, Vice President Pence.” But more than a thanking he needed a spanking.
彭斯总是对辩论会的主持人、《今日美国》的苏珊·佩奇(Susan Page)置之不理，无视佩奇对他的两分钟时间已到的提醒，让自己得以占用比哈里斯更多的时间。佩奇只能不停地重复：“谢谢你，彭斯副总统。谢谢你，彭斯副总统。谢谢你，彭斯副总统。”但他需要的不是感谢，而是打屁股。
Bullying comes in many different forms: red-faced and furious like Trump’s; chalk-faced and funereal like Pence’s. Shamelessness, too. Pence’s boasts and lies may not be as gilded and rococo as the president’s, but they’re fanciful all the same.
欺凌有许多不同的形式：一种是像特朗普那样满脸通红和怒气冲冲；另一种是像彭斯那样脸色苍白和毫无生气。无耻也有许多不同的形式。彭斯的吹嘘和谎言可能不像总统的那样冠冕堂皇、过分修饰，但它们都很奇特。
He would not fess up to humankind’s role in climate change but said, preposterously, “President Trump has made it clear that we’re going to continue to listen to the science.” Continue? Science? Is this before or after the bleach injections?
他不愿承认人类对气候变化所起的作用，只是离奇古怪地说，“特朗普总统已明确表示，我们将继续倾听科学。”继续？科学？这是在注射了漂白剂之前还是之后？
“This is a president who respects and cherishes all of the American people,” Pence said, making me wonder if I’d spaced out and missed an antecedent and he was talking about someone other than Trump.
“这是一位尊重和珍惜所有美国人民的总统，”彭斯说，这让我怀疑自己是不是走了神，没听见前面的话，他是在说其他人，而不是特朗普。
Pence also said: “Senator Harris, you are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts.” This confused me, because Trump gets to have his own facts and Pence just beams at him.
彭斯还说：“哈里斯参议员，你有权发表自己的观点，而不是你自己认为的事实。”这可把我搞糊涂了，因为特朗普只认自己的事实，而彭斯只是对他眉开眼笑。
But I was most impressed by his audacity in addressing Trump’s anticipatory claims of voter fraud and refusal to say he’d accept the election results and participate in a peaceful transfer of power.
但彭斯在回答关于特朗普对选民欺骗的预先宣告，以及拒绝表示他是否会接受选举结果、参与权力的和平交接这个问题时的大胆妄为，给我留下了最深的印象。
He turned the situation completely around, suggesting Biden was the one to worry about and bringing Hillary Clinton — who has said that Biden shouldn’t concede too quickly, given Trump’s shenanigans — into the discussion.
彭斯倒打一耙，暗示拜登才是大家需要担心的人，并把希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)——希拉里曾说，考虑到特朗普的诡计多端，拜登不应该过早承认败选——拉了进来。
Hear that for what it was: a tacit admission that Trump, Pence and their supporters have utterly failed to make Biden as scary to voters as they did Clinton. The solution? Tug her back into the fray, even though she’s not really anywhere near it.
这其实是在承认：特朗普、彭斯和他们的支持者们在让选民害怕拜登上彻底失败了，远不如他们让选民害怕希拉里上那么成功。怎么办？把希拉里拉进来，尽管这次竞选中连她的影子都看不到。
Pence followed his orders when they were ludicrous, stuck to the script when it was laughable and never betrayed an iota of discomfort, because he never really betrays anything — except the supposed principles he once had.
彭斯对荒唐命令惟命是听，对可笑的稿子毫不偏离，从未流露出一丁点儿不安，因为他从未真的背叛过任何东西——除了他曾经有过的那些所谓的原则。
