【经济学人】“我宁愿把票投给米老鼠也不愿意投给他们俩”|2016.10.29|总第719期

WITH the Gothic spires of the Salt Lake Temple looming behind her, Diane, who works for the Mormon church, grimaces as she considers her political choices. “Well, Trump wants to be king, not president. And Hillary lacks integrity. I would vote for Mickey Mouse before I voted for either of them.” The only candidate she can stomach is Evan McMullin, a 40-year-old Mormon who served in the CIA.

身后是盐湖城摩门圣殿隐隐约约的哥特式塔尖，戴安，一名摩门教堂的工作人员，在谈到自己对总统大选的看法时愁眉苦脸。“川普想做的是国王而不是总统，希拉里又不够正直。我宁愿把票投给米老鼠也不愿意投给他们俩。”她唯一认可的总统候选人是40岁的中央情报局前官员伊万·麦克马林。

伊万·麦克马林

MrMcMullin announced his candidacy as an independent in August. He began with near-zero name recognition and made the ballot in just 11 states. Yet recent polls put him in a dead heat with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in his native Utah. An Emerson College survey on October 19th gave him a four-point lead, and betting markets put his chances there around 30%. No third-party candidate has won a state since the segregationist George Wallace swept the Deep South in 1968.

八月份，麦克马林先生宣布以个人名义参选总统。刚开始几乎没什么人知道他，只在十一个州有选票。然而最近的民调显示在他的家乡犹他州，他的票数和希拉里·克林顿以及唐纳德·特朗普相差无几。10月19日，爱默生大学的调查显示他领先四个百分点，而博彩市场认为他的胜率大概有30%。自从1968年乔治·华莱士在深南州大获全胜以来，还没有第三方参选人在赢下过一个州。

• ballot: n.选票总数，选举

• dead heat: 势均力敌，不相上下

• segregationist: n.种族隔离主义者
  

Before the campaign of 2016, Utah seemed the least likely place in the country to give a Republican headaches. Republicans have won it by at least 18 percentage points in 12 straight general elections; both George W. Bush in 2004 and Mitt Romney took over 70% of the vote. The main source of the party’s dominance is the state’s Mormon population. They make up over 70% of the electorate, and lean more Republican than any other religious group.

2016年大选之前，犹他看起来是全国范围内最不可能给共和党制造麻烦的州。在该州过去的12次大选中，共和党人都至少领先18个百分点；2004年乔治·布什和米特·罗姆尼在这拿到了70%多的选票。这种优势的原因在于摩门教徒的支持。他们占该州选民总数的70%，而且较其他宗教团体更支持共和党。

• electorate: n.全体选民

Mormons were not always stalwart Republicans. Before the 1960s, Utah’s politics were more balanced. But the Democratic Party’s support of abortion rights alienated Mormon voters, and they were strongly influenced by conservative figures like Ezra Taft Benson, who served as secretary of agriculture under Dwight Eisenhower before returning to Utah and leading the Mormon church. In 1974 Benson declared that any Mormon who “was living the gospel and understood it” could not be a liberal Democrat. In devout Mormon circles, the Democratic Party remains taboo. Crystal Young-Otterstrom, the chair of LDS Democrats, said that when she first switched from being a Republican, she told her parents and friends she was a communist because, “that was easier, somehow”.

摩门教徒并不是一直都这么坚定地支持共和党。上个世纪六十年以前，犹他州的政治倾向还比较平衡，但是支持堕胎的做法使民主党与摩门教徒之间的关系渐行渐远。而且摩门教徒深受埃兹拉·塔夫特·本森（德怀特·艾森豪威尔执政时期的农业部部长，后来回到犹他州主持摩门教堂）等保守派人士影响。1974年，本森宣布任何一名“秉持并相信上帝福音”的摩门教徒都不能成为自由民主党的一员。在虔诚的摩门信众中，民主党至今仍是个忌讳。摩门教民主党主席克里斯托·奥特斯托姆说，当她脱离共和党加入民主党的时候，她告诉父母和朋友，她成为了一名共产主义者，“这样可以让他们更容易接受些”。

• stalwart: adj.忠实的，健壮的

• gospel: n.福音

埃兹拉·塔夫特·本森

 Nonetheless, Mormons have developed a unique brand of conservatism. Last year the church helped pass a law that prohibited discrimination in housing and employment on the basis of sexuality. Utah has accepted over 60,000 refugees since the end of the Vietnam war; in recent years it has had one of America’s highest refugee-resettlement rates. Yet the Mormon aspiration to “secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life”, plus the emphasis on each individual being responsible for their own fortune, have kept them in the Republican fold.

尽管如此，摩门教徒已经成为一种独特的保守力量。去年，摩门教会促使犹他州颁布了一项法律，禁止住房和雇佣方面的性别歧视。越战结束至今，犹他州接收了6万多名难民，是美国近年来接收难民比率最高的州。然而，摩门教徒“确保每个人都享有信仰自由、财产权和生命权”的信条，以及强调个人掌控命运的态度，使他们并未脱离共和党的行列。

Mr Trump’s relatively weak showing in Utah is partly explained by the strength of the state’s economy. Utah’s unemployment rate is only 3.4%, 1.6 points below the national average. The poverty rate is 2.3 points below the nationwide mark, and incomes are more equal than in any other state. But it mostly reflects Mormon values, which include decency, kindness and humility. The emergence earlier this month of an 11-year-old tape, which showed Mr Trump bragging that he could grope women and get away with it, caused several prominent Utah Republicans, including the state’s governor, Gary Herbert, to drop their support. Jon Huntsman, a former governor who had surprised many by endorsing the Republican nominee, went a step further and urged him to drop out of the race. And the Deseret News, a newspaper owned by the Mormon church, broke an 80-year tradition of neutrality to implore Mr Trump to quit.

犹他经济发展的高水平可以部分解释特朗普在该州表现相对较弱的原因。犹他州的失业率仅为3.4%，比全国平均水平低1.6个百分点。贫困率为2.3%，也低于全国平均水平，而且收入分配较其他州都更为公平。但（特朗普在犹他州相对较弱）最根本的是凸显了摩门教的品质，包括正直，善良和谦卑等。本月早些时候曝光的一份11年前的录音中，特朗普吹嘘自己曾经玩弄女性而且没有受到任何惩罚。这使得包括州长加里·赫伯特在内的一些犹他州知名共和党人，放弃了对特朗普的支持。一直为共和党提名人背书的前州长洪博培，则更进一步敦促特朗普退出竞选。摩门教会的《犹他新闻报》也打破80年来一贯坚持的中立态度，呼吁特朗普辞职。

• decency：n. 正派；体面；庄重；合乎礼仪；礼貌
  

• get away with：逃脱惩罚
  

• go a step further: 更进一步

Even before October, though, this election was unusual for the role played by the usually apolitical Mormon church. It responded to Mr Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration by posting on its website two quotes about religious liberty from Joseph Smith, the faith’s founder. “Many members of the Mormon church feel like refugees, having been chased from place to place,” says Jeff, a church employee. “Many of us have done missions to foreign places and fallen in love with the people there.” A walk around the campus of Brigham Young University, a place so Mormon that even the sodas in the campus store are caffeine-free, revealed stickers and luggage tags on students’ backpacks and cars that read “I

其实十月份之前，通常不关心政治的摩门教会对这次竞选的态度就已经有些不同寻常了。教会在其网站上发布了教会创始人约瑟夫·史密斯关于信仰自由的两条语录，作为对特朗普禁止穆斯林移民政策的回应。“摩门教会的许多教徒就像难民一样从一个地方被驱逐到另一个地方”，教会员工杰夫说，“我们许多人都到国外去传教，并爱上了那里的人们。”走在杨伯翰大学的校园里，你会发现这个学校如此“摩门化”甚至于苏打水都是无咖啡因的，学生背包、汽车上的贴纸和行李牌上随处可见“I

• caffeine-free：无咖啡因的，脱咖啡因的

约瑟夫·史密斯

Do Mr Trump’s struggles in Utah signal the end of its long run as a near-one-party state? Greg Hughes, the Republican Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives, who continues to support Mr Trump, says the Republican Party will remain dominant. It currently boasts 87 lawmakers in Utah’s legislature to the Democrats’ 17. “No matter what happens, I just don’t think there’s going to be such a big impact down-ticket,” he says. Richard Davis, a professor at Brigham Young University, isn’t so sure. “Once people start disassociating from their usual party, it will probably be easier for them to do so in the future.”

特朗普目前的困难是否表明犹他不再是那个一直以来的“一党之州”了呢？继续支持特朗普的犹他州众议院共和党发言人Greg Hughes表示，共和党仍将保持领先优势。目前，共和党在犹他州议会里有87名立法委员，而民主党只有17名。杨百翰大学教授理查德·大卫说：“无论发生什么情况，我认为像上面说的那样票数直线下降的局面不会出现。”但他又不确定的说道：“一旦人们不再支持他们以往支持的政党，今后这种不支持的局面就更容易出现了。”

Greg Hughes

If MrMcMullin does triumph, the effects will reverberate far beyond Utah. It is conceivable, though vanishingly unlikely, that he could become president: if no candidate secures 270 electoral votes, the House of Representatives would pick the victor from the top three finishers, and he might emerge as a compromise candidate. Far more plausibly, he could pave the way for future challenges to America’s political duopoly. Although Ross Perot took 19% of the vote in 1992, he did not come close to winning any states. MrMcMullin’s surge suggests that third-party candidates should focus on cultivating a strong regional base. In a close election, that could potentially make one a kingmaker.

（欢迎您的试译，次日会有读者试译详解哦~）如果没有候选人获得270张选票，众议院将挑选票数最高的三位候选人来角逐总统职位，这样麦克马林可能成为人们一种折中的选择。而且很有可能他可以为今后打破美国两党垄断政治局面的努力铺平道路。尽管罗斯·佩罗1992年赢得了19%的选票，但他并没有赢下任何一个州。麦克马林的出现表明独立候选人应当注重培育强大的地区基础。这样的基础可能成为在一场势均力敌竞选中胜出的决定因素。

罗斯·佩罗

翻译 ▍政治第一组

审核 ▍砺石

编辑 ▍毛毛