金斯伯格身后的空缺和分裂的美国
Will the Election Turn on R.B.G.?
MAUREEN DOWD
2020年9月21日
WASHINGTON — I used to feel pretty optimistic that the country would get through the Trump years intact.
华盛顿——我曾经非常乐观地认为，美国将完好无损地度过特朗普的任期。
In 2016, America got mad — and went mad. This administration has unleashed so many fresh hells that a portrait of the last four years looks very Hieronymus Bosch. But the idea of this country is so remarkable; surely it could withstand one cheesy con man who squeaked in.
2016年，美国恼羞成怒——而且发了疯。本届政府打开了那么多前所未见的地狱，以至于过去四年看上去就像耶罗尼米斯·博斯(Hieronymus Bosch)油画中的景象。然而这个国家的理念是如此卓越；它肯定可以承受一个侥幸挤进来的粗俗骗子。
Now we might have passed a point of no return. No matter who wins in November, can the harsh divisions abate?
现在我们可能已经没有机会回头了。无论谁在11月的大选中获胜，尖锐的分裂能够缓解吗？
The stunning news Friday night of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg guaranteed a political bonfire. President Trump is in a position to reshape the Supreme Court long past his time in office with a third justice, giving conservatives a 6-to-3 majority.
周五晚上鲁思·巴德尔·金斯伯格(Ruth Bader Ginsburg)去世的惊人消息肯定会引发一场政治大火。特朗普总统有机会通过第三位大法官重塑最高法院，让保守派获得6比3的多数优势，其影响可以远远超出他的任期。
With Democrats still smarting over Republicans’ refusal to consider Barack Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland for the court, this will push them over the edge, and maybe to the polls, especially women. And Trump’s base could race to vote, because the president has talked about nominating Tom Cotton or Ted Cruz, aiming to have a court that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Mitch McConnell said Friday that Trump’s nominee — hopefully not Jeanine Pirro — will get a floor vote.
民主党仍在为共和党拒绝考虑贝拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)的大法官人选梅里克·加兰德(Merrick Garland)而痛心，金斯伯格的去世将把他们推向极端，或许还会促进他们参加投票，尤其是女性选民。而特朗普的支持者会争取尽早就大法官人选投票，因为总统已经在说要提名汤姆·科顿(Tom Cotton)或特德·克鲁兹(Ted Cruz)，目的是让最高法能够推翻罗诉韦德案(Roe v. Wade)。米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)于周五表示，特朗普的提名人选——希望不是珍宁·皮罗(Jeanine Pirro)——将获得参议院表决机会。
“We cannot have Election Day come and go with a 4-4 court,” Cruz told Sean Hannity. Imagine a Bush v. Gore scenario with a 4-4 court.
“我们不能带着4比4的法庭度过总统大选日。”克鲁兹对肖恩·汉尼提(Sean Hannity)说。想象一下布什对戈尔的选举在最高法4比4的情况下重演。
As it turned out, the founders created a country painfully vulnerable to whoever happens to be president. They assumed that future presidents would cherish what they had so painfully created, and continue to knit together different kinds of people from different areas with different economic interests.
事实证明，开国元勋们创建的国家极易受到总统的伤害，无论是由谁当选。他们认为，未来的总统会珍惜他们如此艰苦创造的东西，继续把来自不同地区、有着不同经济利益、分属不同类型的人们编织在一起。
But now that we have a president who takes those knitting needles and stabs the country mercilessly with them, we can see how fragile this whole thing really is.
但是现在我们的总统拿着那些编织针，用它们无情地刺伤这个国家，我们可以看到整个体系到底有多么脆弱。
All the stuff we took for granted — from presidential ethics to electoral integrity to a nonpolitical attorney general — is blown to smithereens. The president who does not believe in science has been conducting a science experiment for four years: What happens to a country when you have a president who is doing everything in his power to cleave it?
所有我们认为理所当然的东西——从总统的道德到选举的诚信，再到一个没有政治立场的司法部长——都被炸得粉碎。一个不相信科学的总统搞了四年的科学实验：当一国总统在权力范围内竭尽所能地分裂这个国家时，这个国家会发生什么？
It wasn’t long ago that Obama started on the road to the White House with a stirring speech about ignoring those who would slice our nation into red states and blue states because this is the United States of America.
没多久之前，奥巴马在通往白宫的征程起点发表了一篇激动人心的演讲，呼吁无视那些将我们的国家分割成红州和蓝州的人，因为这里是美利坚合众国。
Now Trump blames the “badly run blue states” and “Democrat cities” for everything. He clearly doesn’t see himself as president of a majority of the country. Whenever he talks about the half of the country that didn’t vote for him, he paints a picture of a Scorsese urban hellscape the minute you cross state lines.
现在特朗普把一切都归咎于“管理不善的蓝州”和“民主党城市”。他显然不认为自己是这个国家多数人的总统。每当他谈到没有投票给他的那一半国家时，他就会描绘出一幅踏过州界就是斯科塞斯(Scorsese)式都市地狱的景象。
On Wednesday, the president offered the heinous hypothetical that the death toll from the coronavirus would not be as bad “if you take the blue states out.”
周三，总统做了一个令人发指的假设——“如果你把蓝州排除在外”，那么新冠病毒死亡人数就不会那么糟糕。
As the president of Red America, Trump “regularly divides the country into the parts that support him and the parts that do not, rewarding the former and reproving the latter,” The Times’s Peter Baker wrote.
《纽约时报》的彼得·贝克(Peter Baker)写道，作为红色美国的总统，特朗普“经常把国家分成支持他的部分和不支持他的部分，奖励前者，谴责后者”。
The line between politics and governing can be blurry, certainly. But with Trump, there is no line.
政治和政府治理之间的界限当然可以很模糊。但对特朗普来说，二者之间没有界线。
Jared Kushner bragged to Bob Woodward that Trump can “trigger the other side by picking fights with them where he makes them take stupid positions.” Woodward writes that Kushner told an associate, “The Democrats are getting so crazy they’re basically defending Baltimore.” This gleeful assessment from Kushner, a Baltimore slumlord, is the height of cynicism.
贾里德·库什纳(Jared Kushner)对鲍勃·伍德沃德(Bob Woodward)吹嘘说，特朗普可以“通过向对方挑战，刺激他们采取愚蠢的立场”。伍德沃德写道，库什纳对一名助手说，“民主党人疯了，他们基本上是在捍卫巴尔的摩。”对于库什纳这样一个巴尔的摩贫民区大地主，这样得意洋洋的评价堪称犬儒主义的巅峰。
The anxiety about our fractious nature was reflected in the question of Susan Connors at Joe Biden’s CNN Town Hall Thursday night. “Mr. Vice President,” she said, “I look out over my Biden sign in my front yard and I see a sea of Trump flags and yard signs. And my question is, what is your plan, to build a bridge, with voters from the opposing party, to lead us forward, toward a common future?”
周四晚上，乔·拜登(Joe Biden)在参加CNN市政厅(CNN Town Hall)节目时，苏珊·康纳斯(Susan Connors)的提问反映了人们对国家分裂本质的焦虑。“副总统先生，”她说，“我在窗前眺望，越过我前院的拜登标志，是特朗普的旗帜与庭院标志的海洋。我的问题是，你有什么计划，与反对党的选民搭起桥梁，带领我们走向共同的未来？”
Biden was soothing, reassuring that he could pick up those knitting needles once Trump was “out of the way, and his vitriolic attitude, and his way of just getting after people, revenge.”
拜登用安慰的口吻说，只要特朗普“不再挡道，他那些刻薄的态度和他找别人麻烦、报复别人的方式也不复存在”，他就会拿起那些编织针。
But will it be so easy? The cultural ecosystem, and the fever swamps of social media that amplify Trump’s craziness, will remain. Fox News and Facebook will continue to validate the biases and conspiracy theories of a nation that’s increasingly proud of its ignorance, anti-intellectualism and denial of science.
但这真会这么容易吗？文化生态系统以及放大特朗普疯狂的社交媒体狂热沼泽还将继续存在。福克斯新闻(Fox News)和Facebook将继续去验证这个国家的偏见和阴谋论，而这个国家正日益以无知、反智主义和否认科学为荣。
Isn’t the simple fact that the race is this close, when Biden should be crushing Trump, given the president’s lethal negligence and willful subterfuge on the virus and his racial demagogy, proof that our realities are so disparate from one another that unifying will be akin to cleaning a dozen Augean stables?
鉴于总统在新冠病毒问题上的致命疏忽和故意推脱，以及他的种族煽动，拜登本应该碾压特朗普的，然而现在双方却势均力敌，这样简单的事实不就证明了我们的现实情况如此分裂，以至于将人们团结起来的任务无异于清理一整打神话中的奥吉亚斯马厩吗？
After Woodward’s book revealed that Trump knew early on how dangerous the virus was but downplayed it, I heard from those two alternate universes.
伍德沃德的书中透露，特朗普很早就知道这种病毒有多危险，但却对它轻描淡写，随后我听到来自两个平行宇宙的声音。
“I can hardly breathe, it’s so incredible,” my friend Rita said angrily.
“我快窒息了，真是难以置信，”我的朋友丽塔(Rita)生气地说。
“He was just trying to buck people up,” my sister, Peggy, said placidly.
“他只是想让人们振作，”我的姊妹佩吉(Peggy)平静地说。
In Duluth, Minn., at a campaign stop on Friday, a man in a MAGA hat jeered at Biden and told him he could never win. Biden approached the man from the alternate reality, elbow bumped him, chuckled and assured him that if he does win, Biden would work for him, too.
上周五在明尼苏达州德卢斯的一场竞选活动中，一个头戴MAGA帽子的男人嘲笑拜登，说他永远都赢不了。拜登走近这位来自另一个现实世界的人，跟他撞了下手肘，笑着向他保证，如果自己真的赢了，同样也会为他工作。
If McConnell has his way, that work wouldn’t include replacing R.B.G.
如果麦康奈尔得逞，拜登的工作就不会包括提名金斯伯格的继任者。
