特朗普的垮台（下） | 时代周刊
On Aug. 9 in North Carolina, he appeared to go even further. In an errant aside, he said the only remedy to a more liberal Supreme Court under a President Clinton would be Second Amendment supporters. “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Trump said, before shifting his tone. “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
8月9日北卡罗来纳州，他变本加厉。他多嘴多舌，说克林顿总统治下的最高法院将是自由派的，唯一的解决办法有赖于宪法第二修正案的支持者。“如果她选出自己的法官，你就什么也干不成了，伙计。”然后他语锋一转：“尽管第二修正案的支持者，可能有吧，我也不知道。”
译注：宪法第二修正案保障人民有备有及佩带武器之权利。
Critics pounced, saying those words could spur a fanatic to endanger Clinton’s life. The Secret Service, which investigates threats against its protectees, said it was aware of the remark.
批评者抓住不放，认为这些话会挑唆狂热者威胁克林顿的生命。调查对受保护人造成威胁的特勤局表示注意到这一言论。
Trump responded by arguing that he was simply encouraging activists to exercise their political power at the polls and blamed the press for misinterpreting his words. Ryan, the highest-ranking elected Republican, said it sounded like”a joke gone bad.”
特朗普回应说，他只是鼓励活动者在大选时行使政治权力，并指责媒体歪曲他的话。共和党最高级官员莱恩表示，这听起来像是个“讲砸了的玩笑”。
At Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn, aides still nursing scars from skirmishes with Bernie Sanders marveled at their good fortune. As in all campaigns, researchers watch every public event, read every interview, archive every tweet.
克林顿的布鲁克林总部，仍在因与桑德斯对阵而疗伤的助手们感到天赐良机。所有竞选都是这样，研究者观看每一场公众活动、阅读每一次采访，保留每一条推文。
“On other campaigns, we would have to scrounge for crumbs,” says a senior Clinton adviser. “Here, it’s a fire hose. He can set himself on fire at breakfast, kill a nun at lunch and waterboard a puppy in the afternoon. And that doesn’t even get us to prime time.”
克林顿的一名高级顾问说：“在其他竞选中，我们不得不吹毛求疵。现在却发现一个喷子，他吃早饭就能把自己点燃，吃午饭时杀死一个尼姑，下午给一只小狗上水刑，且不说晚间还有黄金时段。”
Republicans began to openly wonder whether Trump could be trusted with the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Sensing an opportunity to pounce, Barack Obama declared Trump “woefully unprepared” for the presidency during an East Room press conference.
连共和党人都公开质疑，特朗普要是掌管了核弹药库，信不信得过。奥巴马找准了时机，在白宫东厅的新闻发布会上宣称特朗普“完全没准备好”做总统。
Hank Paulson, a former Bush Treasury Secretary, said Trump had led “a populist hijacking of one of the United States’ great political parties.”
小布什政府的财长汉克·保尔森表示特朗普“用民粹绑架了美国最伟大的政党之一”。
Fifty Republicans with deep experience in national security signed a letter opposing him. A steady stream of Republican operatives and members of Congress, including Senator Susan Collins of Maine, announced that they could not vote for Trump either.
国家安全领域50名资深共和党人签字反对特朗普，不断有共和党党务人员和国会议员——包括缅因州参议员苏珊·柯林斯——宣布他们也不会给特朗普投票。
“This was a terrible week, and it kept going from bad to worse,” says veteran Republican consultant Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole’s 1996 campaign. “He’s got to stop picking fights and settling scores.”
“这一周太糟糕了，每况愈下。”共和党退休顾问斯科特·里德说，他负责鲍勃·多尔1996年的竞选。“他必须停止四处树敌，找人寻仇。”
With their candidate mired in self-sabotage, Republicans could only watch and wince. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this since George Wallace,” said retail mogul Art Pope.
看着自己的候选人深陷自残的泥沼，共和党人却束手无策，甚至打退堂鼓。零售大亨亚瑟·蒲伯说：“乔治·华莱士以来，我们还没遇到过这种事。”
Sitting at a lakeside hotel in the Colorado Rockies on July 31, the conservative megadonor wondered how his party had wound up cowering in fear of the latest tweet from a former reality star.
7月31日，这位保守派大金主坐在科罗拉多落基山脉一个湖畔酒店里，他搞不明白他的共和党为何缩手缩脚，害怕一个前真人秀明星的最新推文。
“My concern is Donald Trump will depress the Republican vote and hurt down-ballot candidates,” said Pope, a close ally of North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory. “We’re going to lose races because of him. I just hope it’s not all lost.”
蒲伯是北卡罗拉那州州长帕特·麦克罗里的亲密同盟，他说：“我担心特朗普会让共和党的选民灰心丧气，结果伤害了地方候选人。就是因为他，我们会失去选举，我只希望不要全盘皆输。”
Republicans groan that the difficult task of keeping their Senate majority gets tougher with each outré remark. Which is why the RNC is considering shifting some cash and staff away from the presidential race and toward down-ballot contests. That plan is already in motion among powerful outside groups that typically spend hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of the party nominee.
共和党人抱怨，在参议院占多数的任务本就不易，现在他每每大放厥词，就更难办了。这也是为什么共和党大会考虑把一些财力和人力从总统大选中撤出，专注于地方选举。这一计划已经在强大的外围集团中付诸实施，这些集团通常会投给总统提名人数亿美元。
“There’s going to have to be some resource reallocation,” says a senior Republican official familiar with internal party deliberations. A second senior party official routinely instructs Senate campaign managers to distance their candidates from Trump.
一位熟悉党内事宜的资深共和党官员说：“确实会有某种资源调配。”另一位高级官员经常要求参议员的大选经理，让他们自己的候选人和特朗普保持距离。
That explains why Republicans running for office this year don’t meet Trump’s plane at airports or introduce him at rallies. In some places, the avoidance strategy seems to be working. Senator Pat Toomey is in a statistical tie in his re-election bid in Pennsylvania, a state where Trump trails by about 10 points.
这就是为何今年竞选公职的共和党人没有在机场迎接特朗普的飞机，也没有在大会上引荐他。在某些地方，拒斥战略看起来奏效了。参议员帕特·图梅伊在宾夕法尼亚州的再次竞选中，从统计数据看与对手不分伯仲，可在该州，特朗普却落后10个百分点。
In the key swing state of Florida, Senator Marco Rubio is running ahead in his re-election bid even as Trump narrowly trails Clinton. But in New Hampshire, Trump’s troubles may be dragging down Ayotte, who plummeted from a virtual tie to 10 points down in a recent poll.
在关键的摇摆州佛罗里达，参议员马克罗·鲁比奥在再选中一马当先，但特朗普稍许落后于克林顿。可在新罕布什尔州，特朗普惹的祸拖累了阿约特，后者本该与对手难分伯仲，最近的统计显示他落后10个百分点。
Internal and public polling suggests that the party will see record numbers of split-ticket voters who shun Trump but remain open to supporting vulnerable congressional candidates.
内部和公开的民意测验显示，共和党投票者的分裂程度前所未有，他们拒斥特朗普，却公开支持受牵连的议员候选人。
Traditionally, these voters would be among the last targets for the party’s get-out-the-vote effort. But that might change if Trump’s poll numbers remain moribund.
传统上这些选民不是党派动员的目标，可如果特朗普的民调依旧死气沉沉，事情就会起变化。
That’s why Republican officials have begun to acknowledge the possibility of deciding in the near future which voters to prioritize. Trump, who is helping the party collect cash, is mystified by this account. “Why would they state that when I’m raising millions of dollars for them?” he asked TIME.
这也是为何共和党官员开始承认，他们将在不久的将来做出决定，优先去考虑哪些选民。帮着共和党聚财的特朗普对这种解释感到困惑。“为什么我帮他们筹集了上千万美元，他们却这样说。”
Like the rest of the party, Trump’s staff has been flummoxed by his political naiveté. They describe a candidate who doesn’t understand the basics of modern campaigns, from why you knock on doors to how to read a poll to why he should be dialing for dollars more aggressively.
和其他党内人员一样，特朗普的团队也被他的政治天真弄得不知所措。他们认为这位候选人不了解现代选举的基本常识——为什么要敲门，怎样理解民意调查，为什么要更加强势地拨电话找钱……什么都不明白。
His headquarters has enough palace intrigue and warring fiefs to rival the fictional badlands of Westeros. “You’re always afraid of getting fired,” says one staffer, “but it’s his fault, not ours.”
他的总部充满着宫廷阴谋和列国征伐，堪比虚构作品的维斯特洛荒原。“你总害怕被解雇，可错在他，不在我们。”
译注：美国作家的奇幻小说《》的故事世界中四块已知大陆中最西面的一块。
These staff members are still cashing checks but have begun to lose faith that their boss can or should win the top prize in American politics. Most highly regarded Republican operatives have stayed away from the campaign, wary of being blackballed for future gigs.
这些团队成员仍在领工资，可对老板能否或是否应当赢得美国政治的最高奖失去信心。大多数受人尊敬的共和党党务人员退出选战，担心被反攻倒算，以后谋不到好工作。
“If someone applied for a job and brought in a résumé that had Trump 2016 on it,” says a GOP fundraising consultant, “I wouldn’t give them an interview.”
一个共和党筹款顾问说：“如果有人应聘，简历中写着参加了特朗普2016年大选，我不会让他来面试。”
But if many republicans are urging a more measured approach, still others preach confrontation as the surest path to victory. In early August, Trump traveled with Priebus to the tony island of Nantucket, off the Massachusetts coast.
尽管很多共和党人敦促他采取更收敛的方式，仍有人主张对抗是赢得胜利的最有效途径。8月初，特朗普和普利巴斯一同来到马塞诸塞州海岸边的豪华岛屿楠塔基特。
At an $800,000 fundraiser, he hobnobbed inside a steamy home filled with donors who wrote checks of $50,000 or more. Over and over, they pressed Trump to “take the gloves off” and attack Clinton as well as Republicans who won’t fall in line. His response, related by an attendee: “Reince tells me not to.”
在80万美元的筹集活动上，他在潮湿的房间里与一屋子的捐款人相谈甚欢，捐款人开出50000甚至更多的支票。他们再三要求特朗普“动真格的”，攻击克林顿以及不合拍的共和党人。一个服务员说，他的回答是“雷恩斯不让我这样做。”
Trump still has reasons to be bullish. For starters, roughly two-thirds of poll respondents don’t believe his opponent is honest or trustworthy. There’s no predicting what outside forces could intrude: another batch of leaked emails, a terrorist attack, a blow to the economy.
特朗普仍然有叫板的理由。首先，约三分之二的民意调查受访者不相信他的对手诚实可信。谁也预测不到还会有什么突如其来的力量：又一批遭泄漏的邮件、恐怖袭击或是对经济的打击。
Trump’s team frames the election as a choice between continuity and change, and change–even Trump’s radical variety–usually wins out. Conservative critics are finding ways to justify their vote for him. “Forty years of Supreme Court Justices are going to be determined this November,” says Senator Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican who has not formally endorsed Trump.
特朗普团队将选举框定，请在因循和变革间做出选择，而变革往往会胜出，即便以特朗普这种极端形式。保守主义批评者正在寻找其中的原因。“今年十一月将选出最高法院法官，他们能干四十年。”科罗拉多州共和党参议员科里·加德纳如是说，他尚未宣布支持特朗普。
Trump himself appreciates the power of that argument. “You have no choice,” he told doubters at his Cleveland press conference. “You’ve got to go for Trump. Supreme Court.”
特朗普自己欣赏这种说法。“你们没有选择，”他在克利夫兰的新闻发布会上对质疑者说：“你们必须选特朗普，原因是最高法院。”
译注：尽管共和党保守主义不喜欢特朗普，但最高法院面临换届，他们更担心希拉里选出的大法官是自由派的。
If his position is precarious, even his fiercest critics believe it’s too early to write him off. There are signs Trump is trying to change. During an economic speech in Detroit, he ignored more than a dozen protesters and delivered a game impersonation of a conventional Republican.
就算他岌岌可危，最严厉的批评者也认为就此摒弃他为时尚早。有迹象表明，特朗普在试图改变。在底特律阐述经济政策时，他无视十几个人的抗议，规规矩矩地做了一回传统的共和党人。
He is teeing up his first televised ad campaign of the general election in the coming weeks. “They’ve spent $240 million on ads,” Trump says, dramatically overstating the advertising spending on behalf of Clinton. “I’ve spent nothing. Zero. Purposely.” He didn’t think he needed to. Polls disagree.
他准备未来几周投放他的第一宗大选电视广告。“他们花了2.4亿美元打广告，”特朗普夸大了克林顿的广告支出。“我一毛钱没花。一毛没花。我就是这样。”他觉得自己没必要打广告，可民意调查结果却不支持这一想法。
History suggests that 8-point leads in August can melt like ice cream in the heat. Al Gore was down by that margin in August 2000 and came back to win the popular vote. In 1988, George H.W. Bush rebounded from a similar deficit to win the White House. Over the coming weeks, Clinton’s convention bounce may dissipate.
历史证明，8月份领先8个百分点，这会像酷暑中的冰淇淋一样融化。2000年8月，戈尔就落后这么多，后来又追了上来。1988年，老布什差不多也落后了这么多，最后入主白宫。在接下来几周内，克林顿的民主党大会反弹效应可能会消散。
The debates in the fall will provide Trump an opportunity to change his public perception. Trump told TIME he would “absolutely” debate Clinton three times as scheduled but, ever the wily foe, suggested that he might try to renegotiate the terms.
秋季的辩论让特朗普有机会改变他的公众形象。特朗普对《时代》说他“绝对”要和克林顿辩论三场，可姜还是老的辣，他说他要重新谈判条件。
Clinton’s unforced errors and defensive crouch have only magnified voters’ distrust. But most seasoned Republicans are far from optimistic about Trump’s chances. “It’s hard to say I’ve given up hope,” says a party official. “But I have yet to see evidence of anything else.”
克林顿自己犯了错，并处于守势，这让选民加倍地不信任她。可多数共和党人对特朗普当选难言乐观。一个党内官员说：“很难说我不抱希望了，可我也没看到其他迹象。”
For a candidate who has staked his campaign on a pessimistic vision of the nation, he still manages to summon a sense of optimism despite the darkening polls. “I actually think we’re doing better,” Trump says. “I may be wrong, but I think we’re doing much better than anybody understands.”
他把自己的竞选押注在国家的悲观前景之上，却设法激发一种乐观情绪，尽管民意调查一片黑暗。特朗普说：“我真的认为我们做的越来越好了，可能我是错的，但我觉得我们比别人认为的要好得多。”
词汇
pounce
move down on as if in an attack 猛扑，抓住不放
例句：House Democrats were quick to pounce on the platform change, accusing the state GOP of putting politics before children. （《华盛顿时报》8月13日）
民主党议员旋即抓住议程的这一变化不放，指责州共和党把政治放在儿童之前。
outre
eccentric or shockingly strange, conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual 离经叛道的
例句：Prepare to be amazed at how readily the aspirational aspects of the traditional Trump brand mix with his new outré political populist brand.（《华尔街日报》8月13日）
准备好大跌眼镜吧，传统的特朗普标签和他离经叛道的政治民粹主义合流，实现这一雄心太容易了。
scrounge
collect or look around for 搜寻
例句：Here in the world’s information capital, New Yorkers are still scrounging for a few bars of web access, dropped like crumbs from a table. （《纽约时报》8月12日）
在这个世界信息之都，纽约人仍在四处搜寻网吧，就好像寻找从桌子上掉下来的面包屑。
moribund
not growing or changing; without force or vitality 死气沉沉的
例句：The government has failed to create jobs and attract investment that could kickstart the moribund economy.（《美国新闻》8月12日）
政府未能创造就业和吸引投资，这些可以启动死气沉沉的经济。
cower
show submission or fear 畏手畏脚
例句：While his teammates cowered in fear of their lives he stood tall, his faux platinum hair glistening in the early morning light.（《华盛顿时报》8月19日）
队友们畏惧生死时，他站了出来，银灰色的假发在晨曦中闪闪发光。
blackball
vote against; refuse to endorse; refuse to assent 排斥
例句：“There was a time many years ago when I was blackballed from one of Washington’s previously all-male clubs,” she said.（MSNBC 3月11日）
“许多年前，我被华盛顿男子俱乐部拒绝。”她说。
flummox
be a mystery or bewildering to 迷惑不解
例句：One of the world's largest documented ice avalanches is flummoxing researchers. （《自然》8月22日）
有记载以来，世界上最大的冰崩让研究人员大惑不解。
tee up
make detailed arrangements or preparations 做准备
例句：The group built a small observatory with star guides who tee up its telescope and take people on a tour of the night. （《纽约时报》8月12日）
该组织建立了一个小天文台，找来星空导游准备望远镜，带着人们一览夜空。
hobnob
相谈甚欢
例句：It was a perfect place for his hobnobbing and high ideas.（《经济学人》7月12日）
这地方适合高谈阔论。