好英语网特朗普和扎克伯格们会把美国玩坏的
If America’s worst enemies had spent years designing a plan to erode our greatest strengths, they could not have done better than what some of our fellow citizens are doing to the country every day for short-term financial or political gain.
如果说，美国的死对头多年来处心积虑要削弱我们最强的地方，他们取得的成效，应该跟我们自己的同胞没法比，这些人每天在为了些财务或政治小利对自己的国家做更可怕的事。
Prominent figures in government, politics and commerce are behaving in ways that are so destructive of the core institutions and norms that underpin our democracy, one can only assume that they take the country’s stability as a given — that they can abuse and stress it all they want and it won’t break.
政府、政界和商界知名人士的行为方式，对支撑我们民主制度的核心制度和规范产生了极大的破坏，以致我们只能推测，他们觉得国家的稳定是既定的事实——他们可以任意对其滥用和加压，它不会坏。
上周在国会，马克·扎克伯格在应对Facebook上的政治广告谎言问题上，无法给出像样的回答。
他们错了。我们是会把美国玩坏的，我们正走在这条路上。无论是冷战、越战还是水门事件期间，我都没有像现在这样为我们的国家担忧。
This moment “is like Wall Street before the financial crisis, when everyone just took for granted that the system was forever stable,” remarked Gautam Mukunda, research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of “Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter.”
这一刻“就像金融危机前的华尔街，当时所有人都想当然地认为，金融系统永远稳定，”哈佛大学肯尼迪学院(Harvard Kennedy School)研究员、《不可或缺：领导者真正发挥作用的时候》(Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter)一书作者高塔姆·穆昆达(Gautam Mukunda)说。
“So they kept taking bigger and bigger risks and pushing it harder and harder — until they pushed too hard and it crashed and the government had to step in and rescue everyone. If they keep acting like this, Trump and his allies will keep getting short-term wins until the system crashes. Only there won’t be any government to step in and rescue them, because they’ll have broken it — and the country along with it.”
“于是他们冒的风险越来越大，越来越过分——直到太过分了，系统崩溃了，政府不得不介入，拯救所有人。如果他们继续这样做，特朗普和他的盟友将继续获得短期的胜利，直到系统崩溃。只是不会有任何政府介入并拯救他们，因为他们会毁掉它——随之也将毁掉这个国家。”
What am I talking about? I’m talking about a president willing to sink to banana republic governing norms, including withholding aid to Ukraine to compel its leadership to investigate his political rival.
我在说什么？我说的是一个愿意堕落到香蕉共和国治理水准的总统，包括以停止援助相要挟，迫使乌克兰领导层调查他的政治对手。
I’m talking about Republican lawmakers who know that the president’s Ukraine machinations are indefensible and impeachable, particularly after Tuesday’s disclosures by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, that he personally heard President Trump appeal to Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden.
我说的是那些知道总统的乌克兰阴谋无可辩解、足以弹劾的共和党议员，尤其是国家安全委员会乌克兰问题专家亚历山大·文德曼中校(Alexander Vindman)在周二披露他本人曾听到特朗普总统请求乌克兰总统调查乔·拜登(Joe Biden)之后。
Republicans now have a clear choice: let the constitutional impeachment process proceed or attack the process, i.e., our legislative-judicial order. Alas, a majority seem to be opting for the latter.
共和党人现在有一个明确的选择：要么让宪法弹劾程序继续下去，要么攻击弹劾程序，即我们的立法和司法秩序。唉，大多数人似乎选择了后者。
They justify it with daily new conspiracy theories amplified by Fox News. They even stormed a secure room in the Capitol to mislead the public into thinking these hearings are totally one-sided — when in fact both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and lawyers from the relevant committees are doing the questioning.
他们每天都用经过福克斯新闻(Fox News)放大的新阴谋论当理由。他们甚至冲进国会大厦的一个保密房间，让公众误以为这些听证会完全是一边倒——而实际上民主党和共和党的立法者以及相关委员会的律师都在进行质询。
In attacking all the diplomats, intelligence officers and civil servants who have stepped forward, at great professional risk, to bear witness against Trump, they are attacking the people who uphold the regulations — and provide the independent research and facts — that make our government legitimate and the envy of people all over the world, where many people have to bribe government workers for service.
通过攻击所有冒着巨大的职业风险挺身，给出不利特朗普的证词外交官、情报官员和公务员，他们是在攻击维护法规的人——这些人还提供了独立研究和事实——这些法规使我们政府合法，也引来了世界各地的人们艳羡的目光，他们自己要想得到政府的服务，得贿赂里面的工作人员才行。
And, finally, there’s the internet barons who for too long ignored the weaponization of social media, which is turning our free press into a house of mirrors, where citizens can no longer cognitively discern fact from fiction and make informed judgments essential for democracy.
最后，还有网络大亨们，他们太久以来忽视了社交媒体的武器化，这正把我们的自由媒体变成一座镜子做的房子，在其中，公民再也无法从认知中辨别事实与虚幻，也无法做出对民主制度至关重要的明智判断。
I watch it all and wonder: “Are you really doing that? Do you all go home at night to some offshore island where the long-term damage you’re doing to America doesn’t matter?”
我看着这一切心想：“看你们真的要这么做吗？是不是你们到了晚上都会回到某个近海岛屿的家，那里不会被你们给美国造成的长期损害波及？”
And what’s even more frightening is that there are now so many incentives in place in media and politics — from gerrymandering to unlimited campaign contributions to data systems that can ever more perfectly define us, divide us and subdivide us — to ensure that these people will keep on hammering our system until they smash it to pieces.
更可怕的是，如今有太多的刺激因素——不管是“杰利蝾螈”，还是无限制的竞选捐献，还是越来越能精确定义我们、分裂我们、细分我们的数据系统——都促使媒体和政界人士持续打击我们的制度，直到它彻底粉碎。
Look at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was questioned last Wednesday at a House hearing by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A.O.C. was trying to grasp why Zuckerberg thinks it’s O.K. for politicians to run political ads that contain obvious lies, as the Trump campaign has already done in a Facebook ad about Biden viewed by some five million Facebook users.
看看Facebook创始人马克·扎克伯格吧，他在上周三参加国会听证会受到众议员亚历山德里娅·奥卡西奥-科尔特兹（Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez，下称AOC）的询问。AOC试图理解为什么扎克伯格认为，政客发布包含明显谎言的政治广告没什么大不了，比如特朗普竞选团队已经在Facebook上发布关于拜登的广告，有约500万用户看过。
This is all about money for Zuckerberg, but he disguises his motives in some half-baked theory about freedom of the press — so half-baked that he couldn’t explain it even when he knew he would be asked about it by a congressional committee. Read it and weep:
对扎克伯格来说，一切都是为了赚钱，但他仍然用新闻自由的蹩脚理论遮掩这一目的——他的辩护已经蹩脚到了明知自己一定会被国会委员会质询，却都无法自圆其说的地步。以下这段对话会让你落泪的：
A.O.C.: “Could I run ads targeting Republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal?”
AOC：“我能不能发布广告攻击初选中的共和党人，说他们投票支持了‘绿色新政’？”
M.Z.: “Can you repeat that?”
扎克伯格：“能重复一遍吗？”
A.O.C.: “Would I be able to run advertisements on Facebook targeting Republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal? If you’re not fact-checking political advertisements, I’m trying to understand the bounds here of what’s fair game.”
AOC：“我是否能针对参与初选的共和党人，在Facebook发布广告，称他们投票支持了‘绿色新政’？如果你不对政治广告进行事实核查，那我想知道，什么样的攻击被认为是可以接受的，边界在哪里。”
M.Z.: “I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head.”
扎克伯格：“我无法给出不假思索的回答。”
A.O.C.: “Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements?”
AOC：“你是否觉得，完全不经事实核查的政治广告是个潜在问题？”
M.Z.: “Congresswoman, I think lying is bad. I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie, that would be bad. That’s different from it being — in our position, the right thing to prevent your constituents or people in an election from seeing that you had lied.”
扎克伯格：“议员女士，我认为说谎是不对的。我认为发布带有谎言的广告是不对的。但从我们的角度而言，这和是否应该阻止你的选区或选举中的人们看到你撒谎了，是不同的。”
A.O.C.: “So you won’t take down lies or you will take down lies? It’s a pretty simple yes or no.”
AOC：“所以你到底会不会撤掉这些谎言？这是一个简单的是或否的问题。”
M.Z.: “Congresswoman, in most cases, in a democracy, I believe people should be able to see for themselves what politicians they may or may not vote for are saying and judge their character for themselves.”
扎克伯格：“议员女士，在民主社会的大部分情况下，我认为民众应该可以根据政治人士的言论自行判断他们的品格，自行决定该不该投票。”
Yeah, right, as if average citizens are able to discern the veracity of every political ad after years of being conditioned by responsible journalism to assume the claims aren’t just made up.
是的，没错，他说的就好像普通民众真的都被负责任的新闻报道熏陶多年，已经有能力准确判断每一条政治广告的真伪一样。
Just once I’d like to see Zuckerberg look into a camera and say: “I will take Facebook stock down to $1 if that is what it takes to ensure that we’re never again an engine for the perversion of democracy in any country, starting with my own. Facebook is not going to accept any more political ads until we have the resources to fact-check them all.”
哪怕只有一次，但我真希望看到扎克伯格能直视镜头说：“如果把Facebook股价降至1美元可以保证我们不再成为亵渎任何国家民主制度的工具，那我愿意率先这么做。在没有能力事实核查所有内容之前，Facebook不会再接受任何政治广告。”
I doubt he’ll do that, though, because his priorities are profits and power, and he seems quite ready to hurt American democracy to get them.
但我估计他不会这么做，因为他的首要目标是利益和权力，而为了得到这两者，他看上去已经做好伤害美国民主制度的准备了。
Would that he were alone. Think about the Oct. 23 statement that White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham put out, no doubt on Trump’s orders, after the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, testified before House committees.
他可不是一个人。想想在美国驻乌克兰大使比尔·泰勒(Bill Taylor)去国会委员会作证之后，白宫新闻秘书史蒂芬妮·格里沙姆(Stephanie Grisham)在10月23日发布的声明吧，那毫无疑问来自特朗普的命令。
Taylor’s testimony also indicated that Trump withheld vital military and economic aid from Ukraine to pressure its president to conduct an investigation that could sully the man he may run against in the next election — Biden.
泰勒的证词也表明特朗普为了向乌克兰总统施压，要他调查自己在下届大选中可能面临的对手拜登的污点，为此不惜用重要的军事和经济援助作为要挟。
“President Trump has done nothing wrong,” said Grisham’s Orwellian statement. “This is a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.”
而格里沙姆在其奥威尔式的声明中表示：“特朗普总统没有做错事，这是极左议员和未经选举的激进官僚联手的抹黑运动，他们在对宪法开战。”
And who is Stephanie Grisham to render that judgment? She is someone, this newspaper reported, who ascended to her job after a career in which she “mixed toughness and loyalty to her bosses with professional scrapes, ethical blunders and years spent alternately wooing and pounding the press on behalf of scandal-prone Arizona Republicans.”
做出如此宣判的史蒂芬妮·格里沙姆是谁？本报已经报道过，她在得到这份工作之前的职业生涯，“有强悍和对老板的忠心耿耿，也有专业的蒙混过关、道德过失，还有多年来代表丑闻连连的亚利桑那共和党人对媒体连哄带吓”。
And who is Bill Taylor? Someone who has devoted his entire adult life to public service — someone who has served honorably in both Democratic and Republican administrations, as a West Point grad, an infantry officer in Vietnam, a diplomat at NATO, a civil servant in numerous cabinet agencies and a U.S. ambassador. Oh, and this “radical unelected bureaucrat” was chosen for his current position by Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, who has not uttered a word in his defense.
那比尔·泰勒是谁？一个把自己的成年人生全部奉献给公共服务的人——他在民主党和共和党政府里都能不卑不亢地效力，他是西点军校毕业生，越战中的步兵军官，北约外交官，多个内阁机构的公务员，还有就是一名美国大使。哦，这个“未经选举的激进官僚”的现任职位，还是由特朗普的国务卿迈克·庞皮欧(Mike Pompeo)任命的，然而庞皮欧没有替他说过一句话。
And who is Senator Lindsey Graham? He’s the senator who’s always willing to ask American soldiers to make the ultimate sacrifice in places like Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq — to protect our precious democracy — and he’s the senator who’s always unwilling to make even the smallest political sacrifice to protect democracy when it’s threatened at home by this president.
参议员林赛·格雷厄姆(Lindsey Graham)又是谁？他一直乐于要求美国士兵在阿富汗、叙利亚和伊拉克这样的地方做出终极牺牲——以保护我们宝贵的民主制度——而当这一制度在国内被现任总统危害，他却一直不乐意为了保护它做出哪怕最小的政治牺牲。
Graham was all for impeaching Bill Clinton for lying over sex with an intern and he won’t lift a finger to judge Trump for using taxpayer money to coerce a foreign leader to intervene in our election on Trump’s behalf. Graham — and all the rest of them — will live in infamy.
当比尔·克林顿在与白宫实习生的性关系问题上撒谎时，格雷厄姆全力支持对他的弹劾，但他如今却不愿伸出一根手指批判特朗普为了其个人利益，滥用纳税人的钱，强迫一位外国领导人干涉我们的选举。格雷厄姆，以及跟他一样的所有人，都将遗臭万年。