好英语网特朗普想把美国变成什么样
What if Mitch McConnell, at the close of his scalding speech on the Senate floor blaming Donald Trump for the riot that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, had promised to use his every last breath to ensure that Trump was convicted on impeachment charges and could never, ever become president again?
在参议院谴责唐纳德·特朗普要对1月6日国会大厦骚乱负责的激烈发言结束时，如果米奇·麦康奈尔承诺要用尽最后一口气，确保特朗普被判弹劾罪名成立，并且永远不能再次成为总统，那会怎么样？
What if Melania Trump, after the porn star Stormy Daniels said Trump had unprotected sex with her less than four months after Melania gave birth to their son, had thrown all of Trump’s clothes, golf clubs, MAGA hats and hair spray onto the White House lawn with this note, “Never come back, you despicable creep!”
在色情明星“暴风”丹尼尔斯说，特朗普在梅拉尼娅生下儿子不到四个月后就与她发生了无保护措施的性关系后，如果梅拉尼娅·特朗普把特朗普的所有衣服、高尔夫球杆、MAGA帽子和发胶扔到白宫草坪上，再贴上一张纸条，“永远不要回来，你这个卑鄙的变态！”那会怎么样？
What if the influential evangelical leader Robert Jeffress, after Trump was caught on tape explaining that as a TV star he felt entitled to “grab” women in the most intimate places — or after Trump was found liable by a Manhattan jury of having done pretty much just that to E. Jean Carroll — declared that he would lead a campaign to ensure that anyone but Trump was elected in 2024 because Trump was a moral deviant whom Jeffress would not let babysit his two daughters, let alone the country?
在特朗普被逮到他声称作为电视明星，他有权“抓”女人最私密的地方——或在曼哈顿一个陪审团认定特朗普对吉恩·卡罗尔做了几乎同样的事情后——如果著名福音派领袖罗伯特·杰弗里斯宣称，他将领导一场运动，确保2024年特朗普绝不会当选总统，因为特朗普德行有亏，杰弗里斯绝不会让他照看自己的两个女儿，更不用说这个国家了。如果是这样，那又会怎么样？
Where would statements and actions like those have left Kevin McCarthy, his knuckleheads in the House G.O.P. caucus, and other Republicans who now are defending Trump against the Justice Department indictment? Would they be so eager to proclaim Trump’s innocence? Would they be raging against Tuesday’s hearing in Miami? Would they be claiming, falsely, that President Biden was indicting Trump, when they know full well that the president doesn’t have the power to indict anyone?
这样的言论和行动会让凯文·麦卡锡、他在众议院共和党核心小组中那些笨家伙，以及其他正在为特朗普辩护、反对司法部起诉的共和党人有什么样的感受？如果是这样，他们还会如此急切地宣称特朗普是无辜的吗？他们还会对周二在迈阿密举行的听证会感到愤怒吗？他们是否还会错误地声称是拜登总统在起诉特朗普吗——事实上，他们非常清楚总统没有权力起诉任何人。
I doubt it. But I know that all of these questions are rhetorical. None of those people have the character to rise to these ethical challenges and take on Trump and what he has done to break our political system. Trump is like a drug dealer who thrives in a broken neighborhood, getting everyone hooked on his warped values. That is why he is doing everything he can to break our national neighborhood in two fundamental ways.
我很怀疑。但我知道所有这些问题都是反问句。这些人中没有一个人有能力面对这些道德挑战，挑战特朗普以及他破坏我们政治制度的行为。特朗普就像一个在破败街区生意兴隆的毒贩，让每个人都迷上了他扭曲的价值观。正因如此，他正在极尽所能，从两个基本方面破坏我们国家的团结。
For starters, Trump has consistently tried to denigrate people who have demonstrated character and courage, by labeling them losers and weaklings. This comes easy to Trump because he is a man utterly without character — devoid of any sense of ethics or loyalty to any value system or person other than himself. And for him, politics is a blood sport in which you bludgeon the other guys and gals — whether they are in your party or not — with smears and nicknames and lies until they get out of your way.
首先，特朗普一直试图诋毁那些表现出品格和勇气的人，给他们贴上失败者和弱者的标签。这对特朗普来说很容易，因为他是一个完全没有名誉可言的人——没有任何道德感，也不忠于任何价值体系，或者除了他自己以外的任何人。对他来说，政治是一项血腥的运动，你用诽谤、绰号和谎言来打击其他男男女女——不管他们是否属于你的政党——直到他们不能碍你的事。
Trump debuted this strategy early on with John McCain — a veteran, a man who never broke in five-plus years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, a man of real character. Do you remember what Trump said about McCain at a family leadership summit in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, 2015?
特朗普很早就在约翰·麦凯恩身上运用了这一策略——一名退伍军人，一个在北越当了五年多战俘也从没有崩溃过的人，一个真正有品格的人。还记得2015年7月18日，特朗普在艾奥瓦州艾姆斯举行的家庭领导峰会上对麦凯恩做何评价吗？
When McCain ran for president, “I supported him,” Trump told the audience. “He lost. He let us down. But he lost. So I never liked him much after that, because I don’t like losers.” When the audience laughed, the moderator, the pollster Frank Luntz, interjected, “But he’s a war hero!”
当麦凯恩竞选总统时，特朗普对听众说：“我支持过他。”“他输了。他让我们失望了。但是他输了。所以从那以后我就不太喜欢他了，因为我不喜欢失败者。”当观众大笑时，主持人、民调专家弗兰克·伦茨插话道：“但他是战争英雄！”
Trump — who wangled a dubious medical deferment to avoid the Vietnam War draft — then responded: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” Later that day, Trump retweeted a web post headlined, “Donald Trump: John McCain Is ‘A Loser.’”
然后，在越战期间为了避免被征兵而去搞了一份可疑的医疗暂缓证明的特朗普回应说：“他不是战争英雄。因为他被俘才成了战争英雄。我喜欢没有被俘虏的人。”当天晚些时候，特朗普在Twitter上转了一篇帖子，标题是“唐纳德·特朗普：约翰·麦凯恩是一个‘失败者’”。
So part of the way Trump tries to break our system is to redefine the qualities of a leader — at least in the G.O.P. A leader is not someone like Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney, people prepared to risk their careers to defend the truth, serve the country and uphold the Constitution. No, a leader is someone like him, someone who is ready to win at any cost — to the country, to the Constitution and to the example we set for our children and our allies.
因此，特朗普试图打破我们的制度，部份是通过重新定义领导者应有怎样的品质——至少在共和党中是这样。领导者不是利兹·切尼或米特·罗姆尼那样的人，他们愿意为了捍卫真理置自己的政治前途于不顾，为国家服务并维护宪法。不，领导者是像他这样的人，一个愿意不惜一切代价要赢的人，这些代价包括国家、宪法，以及为了我们为后代和盟友树立的榜样。
And when that is your definition of leadership, of winning, people of character like McCain, Cheney and Romney are in your way. You need to strip everyone around you of character, and make everything about securing power and money. That is why so many people who entered Trump’s orbit since 2015 have walked away muddied. And that’s why I knew that all the questions I asked earlier were rhetorical.
当你这样定义领导力、胜利时，像麦凯恩、切尼和罗姆尼这样有品格的人就会挡你的道。你需要剥夺你周围每个人的品格，并把所有事情变成关乎确保权力和金钱。这就是为什么自2015年以来有这么多特朗普周遭的人离开时没有一个身上是干净的。同样的原因让我知道我之前问的都是反问句。
The second way that Trump is trying to break our system was on display on Tuesday in Miami, where he followed his appearance as a federal criminal defendant with a political meet-and-greet at a Cuban restaurant. There, once again, Trump tried to discredit the rules of the game that would restrain him and his limitless appetite for power for power’s sake.
周二在迈阿密，特朗普让我们看到他试图破坏我们制度的第二种方式，他在一家古巴餐馆以联邦刑事被告的身份出现，并举行了一场政治见面会。在那里，特朗普再次试图诋毁游戏规则，这些规则限制了他以及他为权力本身而追逐权力的无限欲望。
How does he do that? First, he gets everyone around him — and, eventually, the vast majority of those in his party — to stop insisting that Trump abide by ethical norms. His family members and party colleagues have grown adept at running away from reporters’ microphones after every Trump outrage.
他是怎么做到的？首先，他让周围的每个人——最终，让他所在政党的绝大多数人——停止坚持要求特朗普遵守道德规范。他的家人和党内同事在每次特朗普暴行后都习惯于逃离记者的麦克风。
But precisely because key political allies, church leaders and close family members will not call out Trump for his moral and legal transgressions — which would make his 2024 re-election bid unthinkable and hasten his departure from the political scene — we have to rely solely on the courts to defend the rules of the game.
但正是因为主要的政治盟友、教会领袖和亲密的家庭成员不会指责特朗普违反道德和法律——这些行为都使人无法想象他在2024年参加竞选，并使他更快地离开政治舞台——我们必须完全依靠法庭捍卫游戏规则。
And when that happens, it puts tremendous stress on our judicial system and our democracy itself, because the decision to prosecute or not is always a judgment call. And when those judgment calls have to be rendered at times by judges or prosecutors appointed by Democrats — which is how our system works — it gives Trump and his flock the perfect opening to denounce the whole process as a “witch hunt.”
当这种情况发生时，它会给我们的司法系统和我们的民主本身带来巨大压力，因为起诉或不起诉的决定始终要有人去判断。当这些判断有时必须由民主党任命的法官或检察官做出时——这就是我们的制度的运作方式——这给了特朗普和他的追随者一个完美的机会来谴责整个过程是“政治迫害”。
And when such behavior happens over and over across a broad front — because Trump won’t stop at red lights anywhere and just keeps daring us to ignore his transgressions or indict him so he can cry bias — we end up eroding the two most important pillars of our democratic system: the belief in the independence of our judiciary that ensures no one is above the law, and the belief in our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately.
当这种行为在广泛的阵线上一遍又一遍地发生时——因为无论在哪，特朗普都不会因为红灯亮起而停下，反而不断地挑衅我们，看我们是会无视他的违法行为还是起诉他，如果起诉他就可以大喊偏见——我们最终会侵蚀两个最重要的支柱对我们民主制度的信念：相信我们的司法独立性可以确保没人能凌驾于法律之上，并且相信我们有能力和平合法地移交权力。
Just consider one scene in Trump’s indictment. It’s after a federal grand jury subpoenaed him in May 2022, to produce all classified material in his possession. Notes written by his own lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, quote Trump as saying: “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don’t. … What happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them? Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”
想想特朗普起诉书中的一个场景，它发生在联邦大陪审团于2022年5月传唤他出示他拥有的所有机密材料之后。特朗普自己的律师M·埃文·科科伦写的笔记引用他的话说：“我不想让任何人翻我的盒子，我真的不想。……如果我们根本不回应或不配合会怎样？直接告诉他们我们这里什么都没有不是更好吗？”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”
“直接告诉他们我们这里什么都没有不是更好吗？”
Better for whom? Only one man. And that’s why I repeat: Trump has not put us here by accident. He actually wants to break our system, because he and people like him only thrive in a broken system.
更好是对谁更好？只有一个人。这就为什么我要再说一遍：特朗普让我们处于这种境地并非偶然。他实际上想打破我们的系统，因为他和像他这样的人只有在崩溃的系统中才能如鱼得水。
So he keeps pushing and pushing our system to its breaking point — where rules are for suckers, norms are for fools, basic truths are malleable and men and women of high character are banished.
因此，他一直在推动我们的系统走向崩溃的临界点——在这种时刻，傻瓜才谈规则，傻瓜才谈规范，基本真理是可以改变的，品格高尚的男人和女人被排斥。
This is exactly what would-be dictators try to do: Flood the zone with lies so the people trust only them and the truth is only what they say it is.
这正是准独裁者试图做的事情：用谎言淹没这个地方，让人们只相信他们，而真相只有他们所说的那样。
It is impossible to exaggerate what a dangerous moment this is for our country.
这对我们国家来说是一个多么危险的时刻，无论怎么强调都不过分。