The Trump era 特朗普时代
America's new president
美国的新总统
The Trump era
特朗普时代
His victory threatens old certainties about America and its role in the world. What will take their place?
他的胜利是对过去的有关美国及其在世界中的角色的确定性的威胁。取代它们的将是什么？
Nov 12th 2016 | From the print edition
THE fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9th 1989, was when history was said to have ended. The fight between communism and capitalism was over. After a titanic ideological struggle encompassing the decades after the second world war, open markets and Western liberal democracy reigned supreme. In the early morning of November 9th 2016, when Donald Trump crossed the threshold of 270 electoral-college votes to become America's president-elect, that illusion was shattered. History is back—with a vengeance.
据说，柏林墙在1989年11月9日的倒塌即历史终结之日。共产主义和资本主义的战斗结束了。在一场囊括了二战后几十年的巨大的意识形态争斗后，开放市场和西方自由民主君临了天下。在2016年11月9日晨，也就是唐纳德·特朗普跨过了270张选举人团票而成为美国当选总统的时后，这种幻觉被打得粉碎。历史——带着复仇——又回来了。
The fact of Mr Trump's victory and the way it came about are hammer blows both to the norms that underpin politics in the United States and also to America's role as the world's pre-eminent power. At home, an apparently amateurish and chaotic campaign has humiliated an industry of consultants, pundits and pollsters. If, as he has threatened, President Trump goes on to test the institutions that regulate political life, nobody can be sure how they will bear up. Abroad, he has taken aim at the belief, embraced by every post-war president, that America gains from the often thankless task of being the global hegemon. If Mr Trump now disengages from the world, who knows what will storm through the breach?
特朗普获胜的事实以及这场胜利到来的方式既是对支撑美国政治的规范和美国作为世界卓越强国的角色的双重重击。在美国国内，一场明显是业余的和混乱的选战羞辱了整个顾问咨询、专家权威和舆论民调行业。如果特朗普总统，如其所威胁的那样，继续考研调控政治生活的各项制度，无人能够确信这些制度将如何在逆境中屹立不倒。在国外，他把目标对准了曾被每一位战后总统所遵从的信仰——美国从作为全球霸主的经常是出力不讨好的任务中获益良多。假如特朗普现在就自绝于这个世界，谁知道什么将席卷海岸呢？
The sense that old certainties are crumbling has rocked America's allies. The fear that globalisation has fallen flat has whipsawed markets. Although post-Brexit Britons know what that feels like, the referendum in Britain will be eclipsed by consequences of this election. Mr Trump's victory has demolished a consensus. The question now is what takes its place.
旧的确定性正在崩塌的感觉震惊了美国盟友。全球化也已一败涂地的忧虑蹂躏了市场。尽管后脱欧时代的英国人知道这是一种什么样的感觉，但是，英国公投将因为这场选举的后果而黯然失色。特朗普的胜利摧毁了一种共识。现在的问题是取代它的是什么。
Trump towers
特朗普君临天下
Start with the observation that America has voted not for a change of party so much as a change of regime. Mr Trump was carried to office on a tide of popular rage. This is powered partly by the fact that ordinary Americans have not shared in their country's prosperity. In real terms median male earnings are still lower than they were in the 1970s. In the past 50 years, barring the expansion of the 1990s, middle-ranking households have taken longer to claw back lost income with each recession. Social mobility is too low to hold out the promise of something better. The resulting loss of self-respect is not neutralised by a few quarters of rising wages.
首先是美国人为一次政党交替而投票不如为一次政权变更而投票那么多的观点。特朗普是在一场大众怒火的浪潮中被裹挟着当上了总统。这部分是由普通美国人没有在国家繁荣中分享到果实的事实所推动的。以实际来算，中间男性的收入仍然低于上世纪70年代。在过去的50年中，除了90年代的扩张之外，中间家庭夺回失去的收入的时间随着每一次危机而延长。社会流动性之低，使得越来越好的承诺无以为续。由此所导致的自尊的丧失并没有因为几个季度的工资上涨所冲淡。
Anger has sown hatred in America. Feeling themselves victims of an unfair economic system, ordinary Americans blame the elites in Washington for being too spineless and too stupid to stand up to foreigners and big business; or, worse, they believe that the elites themselves are part of the conspiracy. They repudiate the media—including this newspaper—for being patronising, partisan and as out of touch and elitist as the politicians. Many working-class white voters feel threatened by economic and demographic decline. Some of them think racial minorities are bought off by the Democratic machine. Rural Americans detest the socially liberal values that urban compatriots foist upon them by supposedly manipulating the machinery in Washington. Republicans have behaved as if working with Democrats is treachery.
愤怒在美国种下了仇恨。认为自身是一种不公平的经济体系的受害者的普通美国人指责华盛顿的精英屈膝卑躬，愚蠢透顶，不敢直面外国人和大公司；更糟糕的是，他们相信，精英本身就是这场阴谋的一部分。他们痛斥媒体——包括本报在内——恩赐有加、狭隘片面，如政客一般脱离现实、高人一等。众多工薪阶层的白人选民都对经济和人口衰落的威胁有着切身感受。他们中 一些人认为，少数族裔已被民主党的机器所收买。乡下人对城里人通过华盛顿的机器的所谓操纵而强加给他们的社会化的自由价值观深恶痛绝。共和党摆出了一副与民主党合作就是背叛的面孔。
Mr Trump harnessed this popular anger brilliantly. Those who could not bring themselves to vote for him may wonder how half of their compatriots were willing to overlook his treatment of women, his pandering to xenophobes and his rank disregard for the facts. There is no reason to conclude that all Trump voters approve of his behaviour. For some of them, his flaws are insignificant next to the One Big Truth: that America needs fixing. For others the willingness to break taboos was proof that he is an outsider. As commentators have put it, his voters took Mr Trump seriously but not literally, even as his critics took him literally but not seriously. The hapless Hillary Clinton might have won the popular vote, but she stood for everything angry voters despise.
特朗普出色地利用了这股大众怒火。不可能让自己为他而投票的那些人也许会对一半的同胞怎么能这么心甘情愿地对他对待女性的态度、对他之于排外情绪的迎合以及对对他之于事实的罔顾视若无睹感到不解。没有理由认为，特朗普的全部选民都赞同他的行为。对于其中的一些人而言，较之美国需要拨乱反正的“一大事实”，他的缺点无足轻重。对于另一些人而言，打破禁忌的意愿就在他是局外人的证据之中。正如评论人士所言，他的选民看中了特朗普，但没有把他当真，就像他的批评者把他当真了却没有看中他一样。不走运的希拉里·克林顿也许赢得了大众投票，但是她代表了愤怒的选民所蔑视的一切。
The hope is that this election will prove cathartic. Perhaps, in office, Mr Trump will be pragmatic and magnanimous—as he was in his acceptance speech. Perhaps he will be King Donald, a figurehead and tweeter-in-chief who presides over an executive vice-president and a cabinet of competent, reasonable people. When he decides against building a wall against Mexico after all or concludes that a trade war with China is not a wise idea, his voters may not mind too much—because they only expected him to make them feel proud and to put conservative justices in the Supreme Court. Indeed, you can just about imagine a future in which extra infrastructure spending, combined with deregulation, tax cuts, a stronger dollar and the repatriation of corporate profits, boosts the American economy for long enough to pacify the anger. This more emollient Trump might even model himself on Ronald Reagan, a conservative hero who was mocked and underestimated, too.
希望在于这场选举将被证明是具有疏导性的。也许，执政期间的特朗普将是务实的和宽宏大量的——就像接受演讲中他一样。也许，他将是国王特朗普，一位管辖着一名执行副总统和一个由胜任之人和明智之人组成的内阁的名誉领袖和首席推特官。当他最终决定反对建造一堵针对墨西哥的高墙或是认为与中国的贸易战不是一种明智的想法时，他的选民不可能太在意——因为他们只是希望特朗普能让他们感到骄傲并把保守派法官送入最高法院。事实上，人们可以设想一个这样的未来——额外的基础设施开支，加之以去监管、减税、强势美元和企业利润的回流，会长时间地刺激美国经济，以致平息这场怒火。这个更加柔软的特朗普甚至可能以罗纳德·里根，这位也曾经遭到嘲笑和低估的保守派英雄，为榜样来塑造自己。
Nothing would make us happier than to see Mr Trump succeed in this way. But whereas Reagan was an optimist, Mr Trump rails against the loss of an imagined past. We are deeply sceptical that he will make a good president—because of his policies, his temperament and the demands of political office.
什么也比不上看到特朗普在这方面的成功能让我们更高兴了。但是，里根是一位乐观派，而特朗普却对一段假象的过去的失去耿耿与怀。我们——因为他的政策、他的性情和政治职务的要求——对他将造就一位好总统深感怀疑。
Gravity wins in the end
万有引力是最后的胜者
Take his policies first. After the sugar rush, populist policies eventually collapse under their own contradictions. Mr Trump has pledged to scrap the hated Obamacare. But that threatens to deprive over 20m hard-up Americans of health insurance. His tax cuts would chiefly benefit the rich and they would be financed by deficits that would increase debt-to-GDP by 25 percentage points by 2026. Even if he does not actually deport illegal immigrants, he will foment the divisive politics of race. Mr Trump has demanded trade concessions from China, Mexico and Canada on threat of tariffs and the scrapping of the North American Free Trade Agreement. His protectionism would further impoverish poor Americans, who gain more as consumers from cheap imports than they would as producers from suppressed competition. If he caused a trade war, the fragile global economy could tip into a recession. With interest rates near zero, policymakers would struggle to respond.
先看他的政策。短暂的大爆发后，民粹主义政策终将在它们自己的矛盾之下崩塌。特朗普承诺废除遭人憎恨的奥巴马医改。但是，这可能剥夺2000多万手头拮据的美国人的医疗保险。他的减税将主要惠及富人而且会得到将让债务和GDP之比到2026年升高25个百分点的赤字的资金援助。就算他不真得驱逐移民，也会煽动撕裂的种族政治。特朗普已经以关税和废除《北美自由贸易协定》要挟中国、墨西哥和加拿大的贸易让步。他的保护主义会让贫穷的美国人更加贫穷，他们作为廉价进口的消费者比作为抑制竞争的生产者获益更多。如果他发动一场贸易战争，脆弱的全球经济可能跌入一场衰退。由于利率在零附近，决策者会很难应对。
Abroad Mr Trump says he hates the deal freezing Iran's nuclear programme. If it fails, he would have to choose between attacking Iran's nuclear sites and seeing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. He wants to reverse the Paris agreement on climate change; apart from harming the planet, that would undermine America as a negotiating partner. Above all, he would erode America's alliances—its greatest strength. Mr Trump has demanded that other countries pay more towards their security or he will walk away. His bargaining would weaken NATO, leaving front-line eastern European states vulnerable to Russia. It would encourage Chinese expansion in the South China Sea. Japan and South Korea may be tempted to arm themselves with nuclear weapons.
在国外，特朗普声称，他对冻结伊朗核项目的协议恨之入骨。如果这个协议失败了，他将不得不在攻击伊朗的核地点与眼看着核武器在中东扩散之间作出选择。他想推翻有关气候变化的巴黎协议；除了为害地球之外，这还会毁掉身为谈判伙伴的美国。更重要的是，他会掏空美国的盟友——她的最大的力量。特朗普要求其他国家增加安全支出，不然，他将一走了之。他的讨价还价会削弱北约，让前线的东欧国家在面对俄罗斯时不堪一击。这还会鼓励中国在南中国海的扩张。日本核南韩可能情不自禁地要用核武器来武装自己。
The second reason to be wary is temperament. During the campaign Mr Trump was narcissistic, thin-skinned and ill-disciplined. Yet the job of the most powerful man in the world constantly entails daily humiliations at home and abroad. When congressmen mock him, insult him and twist his words, his effectiveness will depend on his willingness to turn the other cheek and work for a deal. When a judge hears a case for fraud against Trump University in the coming weeks, or rules against his administration's policies when he is in office, he must stand back (self-restraint that proved beyond him when he was a candidate). When journalists ridiculed him in the campaign he threatened to open up libel laws. In office he must ignore them or try to talk them round. When sovereign governments snub him he must calculate his response according to America's interests, not his own wounded pride. If Mr Trump fails to master his resentments, his presidency will soon become bogged down in a morass of petty conflicts.
谨慎的第二个原因是性情。选战中，特朗普自恋、脸皮薄，不守规矩。然而，世界上最有权势之人的工作需要日复一日地蒙受内政和外交方面的不白之冤。当国会议员嘲笑他、攻击他或者是曲解他的话的时候，他的效率将取决于他的宽容忍耐和达成交易的意愿。当法官在今后几周聆讯一件指控特朗普大学欺诈的案件、或是在他在执政期间否决他的政府的政策时，他必须置身事外（必须要有在他是候选人时已证明是超出了他的能力所及的自制力）。当记者在选战中嘲笑他时，他曾经威胁要援引诽谤法。上台后，他必须对他们视若无睹或者尽力去说服他们。当主权政府怠慢他时，他必须根据美国的利益而不是他那受伤的自尊心来考虑他的应对。如果特朗普没能管住他的怨恨，他的总统任期不久就将深陷冲突的泥潭寸步难行。
The third reason to be wary is the demands of office. No problem comes to the president unless it is fiendishly complicated. Yet Mr Trump has shown no evidence that he has the mastery of detail or sustained concentration that the Oval Office demands. He could delegate (as Reagan famously did), but his campaign team depended to an unusual degree on his family and on political misfits. He has thrived on the idea that his experience in business will make him a master negotiator in politics. Yet if a deal falls apart there is always another skyscraper to buy or another golf course to build; by contrast, a failure to agree with Vladimir Putin about Russia's actions leaves nobody to turn to. Nowhere will judgment and experience be more exposed than over the control of America's nuclear arsenal—which, in a crisis, falls to him and him alone.
谨慎的第三个原因是职务的要求。凡是到了总统那里的问题都是异常复杂的。然而，特朗普并没有展示出椭圆形办公室所要求的对于细节和持续关注的掌控的任何迹象。他可能（像里根那样）委任官员，但是，他的选战团队对于他的家族和政治上不合适人选的依赖到了一种不同寻常的程度。他是靠着他的经商经历会让他成为一位政治谈判大师的说法飞黄腾达的。然而，如果说一桩买卖失败了，总有另一座摩天大楼可以收购，或是另一个高尔夫球场可以建造；与之相比，未能与普京就俄罗斯的行动达成一致的失败会让任何人都无以转向。什么也比不上对于美国核武库的掌控——这种在危机之后会落到他肩上而且是他单独一人肩上的事——更能暴露一个人的判断力和经验——这种会在危机中落在他肩上而且是他单独一人肩上的事。
The pendulum swings out
钟摆偏离常规
The genius of America's constitution is to limit the harm one president can do. We hope Mr Trump proves our doubts groundless or that, if he fails, a better president will be along in four years. The danger with popular anger, though, is that disillusion with Mr Trump will only add to the discontent that put him there in the first place. If so, his failure would pave the way for someone even more bent on breaking the system.
美国宪法的天才之处是能够限制一位总统可能造成的伤害。我们希望特朗普证明我们的疑虑毫无根据；如果他证明不了，我们希望一位更好的总统将在四年后出现。不过，大众怒火的危险在于对特朗普幻想的破灭只会增加将其置于首位的那种不满。如此的话，他的失败会给某位更加一心想要打碎这一体系的人铺平道路。
The election of Mr Trump is a rebuff to all liberals, including this newspaper. The open markets and classically liberal democracy that we defend, and which had seemed to be affirmed in 1989, have been rejected by the electorate first in Britain and now in America. France, Italy and other European countries may well follow. It is clear that popular support for the Western order depended more on rapid growth and the galvanising effect of the Soviet threat than on intellectual conviction. Recently Western democracies have done too little to spread the benefits of prosperity. Politicians and pundits took the acquiescence of the disillusioned for granted. As Mr Trump prepares to enter the White House, the long, hard job of winning the argument for liberal internationalism begins anew.
特朗普的当选是对包括本报在内的所有自由开明人士的回绝。我们所捍卫并且似乎已经在1989年得到肯定的开放市场和古典自由民主，先是在英国，如今又在美国遭到拒绝。法国、意大利以及其他欧洲国家极有可能步其后尘。显而易见的一点是，大众之于西方秩序的支持更多地取决于快速的增长和苏联威胁的立竿见性的效果，而不是学术上的信念。近年来，西方民主在传播繁荣的好处方面几乎无所作为。政客和专家把接受幻想破灭当成了想当然的事情。在特朗普准备入住白宫之际，争取支持自由国际主义观点的漫长而艰苦的工作再启新征程。
From the print edition: Leaders
美国的新总统
The Trump era
特朗普时代
His victory threatens old certainties about America and its role in the world. What will take their place?
他的胜利是对过去的有关美国及其在世界中的角色的确定性的威胁。取代它们的将是什么？
Nov 12th 2016 | From the print edition
THE fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9th 1989, was when history was said to have ended. The fight between communism and capitalism was over. After a titanic ideological struggle encompassing the decades after the second world war, open markets and Western liberal democracy reigned supreme. In the early morning of November 9th 2016, when Donald Trump crossed the threshold of 270 electoral-college votes to become America's president-elect, that illusion was shattered. History is back—with a vengeance.
据说，柏林墙在1989年11月9日的倒塌即历史终结之日。共产主义和资本主义的战斗结束了。在一场囊括了二战后几十年的巨大的意识形态争斗后，开放市场和西方自由民主君临了天下。在2016年11月9日晨，也就是唐纳德·特朗普跨过了270张选举人团票而成为美国当选总统的时后，这种幻觉被打得粉碎。历史——带着复仇——又回来了。
The fact of Mr Trump's victory and the way it came about are hammer blows both to the norms that underpin politics in the United States and also to America's role as the world's pre-eminent power. At home, an apparently amateurish and chaotic campaign has humiliated an industry of consultants, pundits and pollsters. If, as he has threatened, President Trump goes on to test the institutions that regulate political life, nobody can be sure how they will bear up. Abroad, he has taken aim at the belief, embraced by every post-war president, that America gains from the often thankless task of being the global hegemon. If Mr Trump now disengages from the world, who knows what will storm through the breach?
特朗普获胜的事实以及这场胜利到来的方式既是对支撑美国政治的规范和美国作为世界卓越强国的角色的双重重击。在美国国内，一场明显是业余的和混乱的选战羞辱了整个顾问咨询、专家权威和舆论民调行业。如果特朗普总统，如其所威胁的那样，继续考研调控政治生活的各项制度，无人能够确信这些制度将如何在逆境中屹立不倒。在国外，他把目标对准了曾被每一位战后总统所遵从的信仰——美国从作为全球霸主的经常是出力不讨好的任务中获益良多。假如特朗普现在就自绝于这个世界，谁知道什么将席卷海岸呢？
The sense that old certainties are crumbling has rocked America's allies. The fear that globalisation has fallen flat has whipsawed markets. Although post-Brexit Britons know what that feels like, the referendum in Britain will be eclipsed by consequences of this election. Mr Trump's victory has demolished a consensus. The question now is what takes its place.
旧的确定性正在崩塌的感觉震惊了美国盟友。全球化也已一败涂地的忧虑蹂躏了市场。尽管后脱欧时代的英国人知道这是一种什么样的感觉，但是，英国公投将因为这场选举的后果而黯然失色。特朗普的胜利摧毁了一种共识。现在的问题是取代它的是什么。
Trump towers
特朗普君临天下
Start with the observation that America has voted not for a change of party so much as a change of regime. Mr Trump was carried to office on a tide of popular rage. This is powered partly by the fact that ordinary Americans have not shared in their country's prosperity. In real terms median male earnings are still lower than they were in the 1970s. In the past 50 years, barring the expansion of the 1990s, middle-ranking households have taken longer to claw back lost income with each recession. Social mobility is too low to hold out the promise of something better. The resulting loss of self-respect is not neutralised by a few quarters of rising wages.
首先是美国人为一次政党交替而投票不如为一次政权变更而投票那么多的观点。特朗普是在一场大众怒火的浪潮中被裹挟着当上了总统。这部分是由普通美国人没有在国家繁荣中分享到果实的事实所推动的。以实际来算，中间男性的收入仍然低于上世纪70年代。在过去的50年中，除了90年代的扩张之外，中间家庭夺回失去的收入的时间随着每一次危机而延长。社会流动性之低，使得越来越好的承诺无以为续。由此所导致的自尊的丧失并没有因为几个季度的工资上涨所冲淡。
Anger has sown hatred in America. Feeling themselves victims of an unfair economic system, ordinary Americans blame the elites in Washington for being too spineless and too stupid to stand up to foreigners and big business; or, worse, they believe that the elites themselves are part of the conspiracy. They repudiate the media—including this newspaper—for being patronising, partisan and as out of touch and elitist as the politicians. Many working-class white voters feel threatened by economic and demographic decline. Some of them think racial minorities are bought off by the Democratic machine. Rural Americans detest the socially liberal values that urban compatriots foist upon them by supposedly manipulating the machinery in Washington. Republicans have behaved as if working with Democrats is treachery.
愤怒在美国种下了仇恨。认为自身是一种不公平的经济体系的受害者的普通美国人指责华盛顿的精英屈膝卑躬，愚蠢透顶，不敢直面外国人和大公司；更糟糕的是，他们相信，精英本身就是这场阴谋的一部分。他们痛斥媒体——包括本报在内——恩赐有加、狭隘片面，如政客一般脱离现实、高人一等。众多工薪阶层的白人选民都对经济和人口衰落的威胁有着切身感受。他们中 一些人认为，少数族裔已被民主党的机器所收买。乡下人对城里人通过华盛顿的机器的所谓操纵而强加给他们的社会化的自由价值观深恶痛绝。共和党摆出了一副与民主党合作就是背叛的面孔。
Mr Trump harnessed this popular anger brilliantly. Those who could not bring themselves to vote for him may wonder how half of their compatriots were willing to overlook his treatment of women, his pandering to xenophobes and his rank disregard for the facts. There is no reason to conclude that all Trump voters approve of his behaviour. For some of them, his flaws are insignificant next to the One Big Truth: that America needs fixing. For others the willingness to break taboos was proof that he is an outsider. As commentators have put it, his voters took Mr Trump seriously but not literally, even as his critics took him literally but not seriously. The hapless Hillary Clinton might have won the popular vote, but she stood for everything angry voters despise.
特朗普出色地利用了这股大众怒火。不可能让自己为他而投票的那些人也许会对一半的同胞怎么能这么心甘情愿地对他对待女性的态度、对他之于排外情绪的迎合以及对对他之于事实的罔顾视若无睹感到不解。没有理由认为，特朗普的全部选民都赞同他的行为。对于其中的一些人而言，较之美国需要拨乱反正的“一大事实”，他的缺点无足轻重。对于另一些人而言，打破禁忌的意愿就在他是局外人的证据之中。正如评论人士所言，他的选民看中了特朗普，但没有把他当真，就像他的批评者把他当真了却没有看中他一样。不走运的希拉里·克林顿也许赢得了大众投票，但是她代表了愤怒的选民所蔑视的一切。
The hope is that this election will prove cathartic. Perhaps, in office, Mr Trump will be pragmatic and magnanimous—as he was in his acceptance speech. Perhaps he will be King Donald, a figurehead and tweeter-in-chief who presides over an executive vice-president and a cabinet of competent, reasonable people. When he decides against building a wall against Mexico after all or concludes that a trade war with China is not a wise idea, his voters may not mind too much—because they only expected him to make them feel proud and to put conservative justices in the Supreme Court. Indeed, you can just about imagine a future in which extra infrastructure spending, combined with deregulation, tax cuts, a stronger dollar and the repatriation of corporate profits, boosts the American economy for long enough to pacify the anger. This more emollient Trump might even model himself on Ronald Reagan, a conservative hero who was mocked and underestimated, too.
希望在于这场选举将被证明是具有疏导性的。也许，执政期间的特朗普将是务实的和宽宏大量的——就像接受演讲中他一样。也许，他将是国王特朗普，一位管辖着一名执行副总统和一个由胜任之人和明智之人组成的内阁的名誉领袖和首席推特官。当他最终决定反对建造一堵针对墨西哥的高墙或是认为与中国的贸易战不是一种明智的想法时，他的选民不可能太在意——因为他们只是希望特朗普能让他们感到骄傲并把保守派法官送入最高法院。事实上，人们可以设想一个这样的未来——额外的基础设施开支，加之以去监管、减税、强势美元和企业利润的回流，会长时间地刺激美国经济，以致平息这场怒火。这个更加柔软的特朗普甚至可能以罗纳德·里根，这位也曾经遭到嘲笑和低估的保守派英雄，为榜样来塑造自己。
Nothing would make us happier than to see Mr Trump succeed in this way. But whereas Reagan was an optimist, Mr Trump rails against the loss of an imagined past. We are deeply sceptical that he will make a good president—because of his policies, his temperament and the demands of political office.
什么也比不上看到特朗普在这方面的成功能让我们更高兴了。但是，里根是一位乐观派，而特朗普却对一段假象的过去的失去耿耿与怀。我们——因为他的政策、他的性情和政治职务的要求——对他将造就一位好总统深感怀疑。
Gravity wins in the end
万有引力是最后的胜者
Take his policies first. After the sugar rush, populist policies eventually collapse under their own contradictions. Mr Trump has pledged to scrap the hated Obamacare. But that threatens to deprive over 20m hard-up Americans of health insurance. His tax cuts would chiefly benefit the rich and they would be financed by deficits that would increase debt-to-GDP by 25 percentage points by 2026. Even if he does not actually deport illegal immigrants, he will foment the divisive politics of race. Mr Trump has demanded trade concessions from China, Mexico and Canada on threat of tariffs and the scrapping of the North American Free Trade Agreement. His protectionism would further impoverish poor Americans, who gain more as consumers from cheap imports than they would as producers from suppressed competition. If he caused a trade war, the fragile global economy could tip into a recession. With interest rates near zero, policymakers would struggle to respond.
先看他的政策。短暂的大爆发后，民粹主义政策终将在它们自己的矛盾之下崩塌。特朗普承诺废除遭人憎恨的奥巴马医改。但是，这可能剥夺2000多万手头拮据的美国人的医疗保险。他的减税将主要惠及富人而且会得到将让债务和GDP之比到2026年升高25个百分点的赤字的资金援助。就算他不真得驱逐移民，也会煽动撕裂的种族政治。特朗普已经以关税和废除《北美自由贸易协定》要挟中国、墨西哥和加拿大的贸易让步。他的保护主义会让贫穷的美国人更加贫穷，他们作为廉价进口的消费者比作为抑制竞争的生产者获益更多。如果他发动一场贸易战争，脆弱的全球经济可能跌入一场衰退。由于利率在零附近，决策者会很难应对。
Abroad Mr Trump says he hates the deal freezing Iran's nuclear programme. If it fails, he would have to choose between attacking Iran's nuclear sites and seeing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. He wants to reverse the Paris agreement on climate change; apart from harming the planet, that would undermine America as a negotiating partner. Above all, he would erode America's alliances—its greatest strength. Mr Trump has demanded that other countries pay more towards their security or he will walk away. His bargaining would weaken NATO, leaving front-line eastern European states vulnerable to Russia. It would encourage Chinese expansion in the South China Sea. Japan and South Korea may be tempted to arm themselves with nuclear weapons.
在国外，特朗普声称，他对冻结伊朗核项目的协议恨之入骨。如果这个协议失败了，他将不得不在攻击伊朗的核地点与眼看着核武器在中东扩散之间作出选择。他想推翻有关气候变化的巴黎协议；除了为害地球之外，这还会毁掉身为谈判伙伴的美国。更重要的是，他会掏空美国的盟友——她的最大的力量。特朗普要求其他国家增加安全支出，不然，他将一走了之。他的讨价还价会削弱北约，让前线的东欧国家在面对俄罗斯时不堪一击。这还会鼓励中国在南中国海的扩张。日本核南韩可能情不自禁地要用核武器来武装自己。
The second reason to be wary is temperament. During the campaign Mr Trump was narcissistic, thin-skinned and ill-disciplined. Yet the job of the most powerful man in the world constantly entails daily humiliations at home and abroad. When congressmen mock him, insult him and twist his words, his effectiveness will depend on his willingness to turn the other cheek and work for a deal. When a judge hears a case for fraud against Trump University in the coming weeks, or rules against his administration's policies when he is in office, he must stand back (self-restraint that proved beyond him when he was a candidate). When journalists ridiculed him in the campaign he threatened to open up libel laws. In office he must ignore them or try to talk them round. When sovereign governments snub him he must calculate his response according to America's interests, not his own wounded pride. If Mr Trump fails to master his resentments, his presidency will soon become bogged down in a morass of petty conflicts.
谨慎的第二个原因是性情。选战中，特朗普自恋、脸皮薄，不守规矩。然而，世界上最有权势之人的工作需要日复一日地蒙受内政和外交方面的不白之冤。当国会议员嘲笑他、攻击他或者是曲解他的话的时候，他的效率将取决于他的宽容忍耐和达成交易的意愿。当法官在今后几周聆讯一件指控特朗普大学欺诈的案件、或是在他在执政期间否决他的政府的政策时，他必须置身事外（必须要有在他是候选人时已证明是超出了他的能力所及的自制力）。当记者在选战中嘲笑他时，他曾经威胁要援引诽谤法。上台后，他必须对他们视若无睹或者尽力去说服他们。当主权政府怠慢他时，他必须根据美国的利益而不是他那受伤的自尊心来考虑他的应对。如果特朗普没能管住他的怨恨，他的总统任期不久就将深陷冲突的泥潭寸步难行。
The third reason to be wary is the demands of office. No problem comes to the president unless it is fiendishly complicated. Yet Mr Trump has shown no evidence that he has the mastery of detail or sustained concentration that the Oval Office demands. He could delegate (as Reagan famously did), but his campaign team depended to an unusual degree on his family and on political misfits. He has thrived on the idea that his experience in business will make him a master negotiator in politics. Yet if a deal falls apart there is always another skyscraper to buy or another golf course to build; by contrast, a failure to agree with Vladimir Putin about Russia's actions leaves nobody to turn to. Nowhere will judgment and experience be more exposed than over the control of America's nuclear arsenal—which, in a crisis, falls to him and him alone.
谨慎的第三个原因是职务的要求。凡是到了总统那里的问题都是异常复杂的。然而，特朗普并没有展示出椭圆形办公室所要求的对于细节和持续关注的掌控的任何迹象。他可能（像里根那样）委任官员，但是，他的选战团队对于他的家族和政治上不合适人选的依赖到了一种不同寻常的程度。他是靠着他的经商经历会让他成为一位政治谈判大师的说法飞黄腾达的。然而，如果说一桩买卖失败了，总有另一座摩天大楼可以收购，或是另一个高尔夫球场可以建造；与之相比，未能与普京就俄罗斯的行动达成一致的失败会让任何人都无以转向。什么也比不上对于美国核武库的掌控——这种在危机之后会落到他肩上而且是他单独一人肩上的事——更能暴露一个人的判断力和经验——这种会在危机中落在他肩上而且是他单独一人肩上的事。
The pendulum swings out
钟摆偏离常规
The genius of America's constitution is to limit the harm one president can do. We hope Mr Trump proves our doubts groundless or that, if he fails, a better president will be along in four years. The danger with popular anger, though, is that disillusion with Mr Trump will only add to the discontent that put him there in the first place. If so, his failure would pave the way for someone even more bent on breaking the system.
美国宪法的天才之处是能够限制一位总统可能造成的伤害。我们希望特朗普证明我们的疑虑毫无根据；如果他证明不了，我们希望一位更好的总统将在四年后出现。不过，大众怒火的危险在于对特朗普幻想的破灭只会增加将其置于首位的那种不满。如此的话，他的失败会给某位更加一心想要打碎这一体系的人铺平道路。
The election of Mr Trump is a rebuff to all liberals, including this newspaper. The open markets and classically liberal democracy that we defend, and which had seemed to be affirmed in 1989, have been rejected by the electorate first in Britain and now in America. France, Italy and other European countries may well follow. It is clear that popular support for the Western order depended more on rapid growth and the galvanising effect of the Soviet threat than on intellectual conviction. Recently Western democracies have done too little to spread the benefits of prosperity. Politicians and pundits took the acquiescence of the disillusioned for granted. As Mr Trump prepares to enter the White House, the long, hard job of winning the argument for liberal internationalism begins anew.
特朗普的当选是对包括本报在内的所有自由开明人士的回绝。我们所捍卫并且似乎已经在1989年得到肯定的开放市场和古典自由民主，先是在英国，如今又在美国遭到拒绝。法国、意大利以及其他欧洲国家极有可能步其后尘。显而易见的一点是，大众之于西方秩序的支持更多地取决于快速的增长和苏联威胁的立竿见性的效果，而不是学术上的信念。近年来，西方民主在传播繁荣的好处方面几乎无所作为。政客和专家把接受幻想破灭当成了想当然的事情。在特朗普准备入住白宫之际，争取支持自由国际主义观点的漫长而艰苦的工作再启新征程。
From the print edition: Leaders
