全文翻译自NPR5月25日文章
原题：What It's Like To Live In A Small, Rural, Politically Divided Town
作者：Melissa Block
译者：冬天毛
冬天毛导读：
本文对美国乡村的政治现状这个很少被报道的话题进行了实地挖掘，相信不同的读者可以从中得到不同的启发（看了文中的照片，可能还会有人考虑去阿拉斯加玩一趟）。
全国公共广播电台（英语：National Public Radio，缩写为NPR）是美国一家获公众赞助及部分政府资助、但独立运作的非商业性媒体机构，成立于1970年2月24日，开播于1971年4月。其以广播联卖的方式为全美约9百间公共广播电台提供节目，以新闻、综述、采访为主，也有一些音乐、脱口秀等文化、娱乐节目。2009年时，听众数目已超过2000万人。
（维基百科）
正文：
If you fly into Haines, Alaska, you'll be on a prop plane so small that your pilot will call the roll.
如果要飞往阿拉斯加州的海恩斯镇的话，就得坐螺旋桨飞机；飞机很小，飞行员还得兼职清点乘客名单。
"Melissa." Yup. "Mary." Yes. "Joseph?" Right here.
“梅利莎？”——嗯。“玛丽？”——到。“约瑟夫？”——在。
Just 2,500 people live in Haines — a small town in southeast Alaska surrounded by water. The scenery is incredible, with snowy mountains and lush green forest beyond. The city center is just a few blocks, with several bars, a few restaurants and a beautiful, award-winning library.
海恩斯是位于阿拉斯加东南部的一座四面环水的小镇，只有2500居民。这里群山覆雪，远处森林郁郁葱葱，一片大好风光。市中心只有寥寥数个街区大小，有几间酒吧几处餐馆，还有一家得奖的漂亮图书馆。
雾刃酒吧的酒保卡罗尔·里奇
坎迪斯·穆斯塔-斯科特与女儿艾拉和她的伙伴
海恩斯的船港
But lately, this idyllic place has been roiled by a bitter political battle. A group of residents wants to recall more than half the members of the local government, the borough assembly.
但在近来，一场政治恶战在这片田园牧歌式的祥和之地激起了波澜。一群镇民要求本地政府——自治镇议会——撤除其多半成员的职务。
In the 2016 presidential election, Haines split right down the middle: Hillary Clinton eked out a four-vote margin of victory over Donald Trump, getting 374 votes to his 370.
在2016年总统选举中，海恩斯齐齐分裂成了两派：希拉里·克林顿面对唐纳德·特朗普，以374票对370票的结果，获得了4票的微弱优势。
To better understand this community, and to find out what all the fuss is about, we gathered a small group to talk about their lives. On a weekday evening, they gathered in a circle at the community center. Among those who came: a motel owner, a fisherman ... and one of the targets of that ongoing recall effort.
为了更好地了解这个社区，也为了弄清这一通骚乱的缘由，我们请了一小拨人来聊聊自己的生活。在一个工作日的晚上，他们在社区中心团团聚集，这些人里有汽车旅馆的老板，渔民等等，还有正在被人们要求撤职的政府成员当中的一位。
Shane Horton is the motel owner. He also drives a snowplow, and he's circulating that recall petition.
汽车旅馆老板的名字叫肖恩·霍顿，他开着一辆扫雪机代步，并且正在四处宣传要求政府成员撤职的请愿活动。
"This is kind of like a family, it's typical of a very dysfunctional family," says Horton. "There is little but dissent around here, for the most part."
霍顿说：“我们像是一家人，典型的出毛病的一家人。大部分情况下，我们只会闹意见不合。”
Heather Lende is a writer who was just elected to the borough assembly last fall — she's one of the people Horton and others are trying to remove. When she heard that some in her community were trying to oust her, "it was heartbreaking."
海瑟·兰德是一位作家，去年秋季当选了镇议会成员，也是霍顿等人正在试图撤职的人之一；在得知社区中有人想赶她下台时，她“感到心碎”。
Social media makes it worse, Lende says: People in Haines are saying things online they wouldn't dare say in public in such a small town.
兰德表示，社交媒体让事情火上浇油：海恩斯的镇民们正在网上说着他们在小镇里不敢公开说的话。
Haynes Tormey shares his first name with the town where he grew up. He's a mechanic and commercial fisherman and, at 34, he's the youngest of our group.
海恩斯·托米的名字与他生长的小镇相同。他是一位机械技工，也是一位职业渔民，今年34岁，是在场最年轻的一位。
He moved away from Haines, but recently decided to move back, with his wife, Katie, and four kids. It's a different place than he remembers. Angrier. Louder.
他一度迁离了海恩斯，但最近又带着妻子凯蒂和四个孩子搬了回来。这里已经不同于他记忆中的海恩斯，变得更加愤怒，更加聒噪。
"It's a pretty hot political climate here," says Tormey. "It's like a petri dish! Haines is following footsteps with what's happening in our country. The rhetoric and the volume has been turned up ... I'm scared that it's never gonna stop and I don't think it's a healthy way to live."
托米说：“这里的政治气氛很热烈，像个培养皿！海恩斯与我们整个国家的现状是同步的，言辞越来越激烈，调门越来越高……我害怕这种现状将长此以往，我觉得这不是健康的生活方式。”
That gets nods of agreement around the room. So what's at the root of all the contention? Sure, some people are upset over local issues, like a harbor expansion or who should be the new borough manager. But it's about more than that.
他说完，整个屋子里一阵点头。那么，人们争论的根源究竟是什么？没错，有些人在某些本地事务方面有意见，比如港口扩建问题或者谁来当下一任镇长之类的，但问题不仅如此。
It breaks down as old-timers versus newcomers, to some extent. But also, people who want resource development, like mining or logging, against "greenies" — environmentalists who stand in the way.
某种程度上，问题归根结底是老人和新人间的矛盾。但除此之外，也是想搞采矿伐木等资源开发的人和阻挠他们的“绿绿”——环保主义者间的斗争。
"One of the things that make ornery, bitter old farts like me," explains Horton, "is that I came here and was doing construction and dirt work involved with the timber industry. And that went away. So I went into doing something else, and then that gets blown out of the water. How many times can I get told to completely start over because what I am doing is now not acceptable?"
霍顿解释说：“像我这种脾气暴躁、怨气冲天的老家伙之所以会出现的一个原因，就是我当初来这里做点伐木业相关的建造和挖土活计，然后那个产业就没了；我接着跑去干别的，然后那个别的又被扔进了垃圾桶。因为人们如今对我从事的行业看不惯了，就让我从头开始，这样的事情还要来多少次？”
For people in Haines, maybe it's a question of who are we now? What's our identity in this place that's changing?
或许对海恩斯的人们来说真正的问题是：我们现在是谁？在这个不断变迁的小镇上，什么才是我们真正的身份？
Dave McCandless, a family physician in Haines, has seen these same tensions in other places he's lived.
戴夫·麦坎德斯是海恩斯的一位家庭医生，在他以前居住的其他地方也曾见过同样的对立局势。
"I think we're actually hardwired to judge things around us and decide if somebody is one of us or one of them," McCandless says. "But once you decide somebody's one of 'them,' it's real easy to you know, switch over and say, 'Well, if I disagree about this, maybe I disagree with him about everything. And suddenly I can't find any common ground.' "
麦坎德斯说：“我觉得我们总是本能地对周遭的事物品头论足，然后认定这个人是我们这边的人，这个人是他们那边的人。但是一旦你认定某个人属于“他们”那边，你对这个人的观点就很容易全盘改换，然后觉得：‘诶，如果我在这个问题上跟他看法不一样，那或许我什么事都跟他合不来。忽然，我们之间就找不到任何共同点了。’”
That common ground has been elusive in Haines lately, but Heather Lende says, despite the recall effort against her, she's optimistic.
近来，海恩斯的人们确实很难找到麦坎德斯说的共同点，但海瑟·兰德表示，尽管人们试图撤她的职，她还是持乐观态度。
She's a liberal, and has very close friends who are Trump supporters. "I'm not gonna lose a friend over whoever votes for someone in the national election," Lende says, "and maybe that's the lesson that can come from Haines for the rest of the world. We've lived with divisiveness for a long time, but is it worth losing a friend over? I don't think so."
她是一位自由主义者，她的死忠好友当中也有支持特朗普的人。兰德说：“我不会就因为大选里谁投了谁而失去朋友，而这或许是全世界都能从海恩斯学到的一件事。长久以来，我们都生活在这种分裂状态下，但这种事是否值得你失去朋友？我不这么觉得。”
Doc, as the group affectionately calls him, sees it every year: Anger builds through the long, dark winter months, he says, "and February, March, April is when people kind of fall apart. The holidays are over and it's a long time till spring."
被镇民们亲切地称为“大夫”的麦坎德斯每年都在见证这一切。他表示，镇民们的怨气在漫长、黑暗的冬季不断积累，“到了二月、三月和四月，人们就开始彼此分崩离析。节日已经过去了，但离开春还有很长一段时间。”
Shane Horton laughs. Yep, that sounds about right.
肖恩·霍顿笑了，看来他深有同感。
海恩斯人们的生活还在继续：朋友们在咖啡馆兼杂货店的山市吃午饭
"When I first came to Alaska, that was basically a kind of a joke," says Horton. "About March, there was a whole slew of divorces and screaming arguments and everybody switched ... Traded vehicles, bought a new truck. Ended up with a new wife and everybody took off and struggled through another year again."
霍顿说：“我刚来阿拉斯加的时候，那简直就是一场笑话。到了三月前后，一大帮子人扯足了嗓门吵架、闹离婚，每个人的生活都变了……大家交换汽车，买新的卡车，讨个新老婆，每个人都重新出发，努力熬过新的一年。”
Joanne Waterman, who just retired from working at the ferry terminal calls it "spring breakup."
刚刚从码头的工作退休的乔安·沃特曼管这个叫“春季分手”。
"We will go through these times," she says. "We will fight, we will scrap, we'll go to the bar and have a beer together. And we'll bounce back and we'll be different. But you know? We'll still be a community that, at the base of it — at the heart of it — we love each other."
她说：“我们总会经历这些吵架和争斗的时期，但只要一起去酒吧喝杯啤酒，我们就会重归于好，并且会有所改观。但你知道吗，我们终归属于一个共同体，从根本上，从本质上，我们相亲相爱。”
Dave McCandless says he's sure this current climate will pass: "What you're seeing, this tension and this turmoil and all that, it's all happened before," he says.
戴夫·麦坎德斯说，他相信目前的气氛只是暂时的，他说：“你现在看到的这种对立、动荡和所有的一切，以前都不是没发生过。”
"This country has been full of that, just like the town is full of it. Three years from now we'll be arguing about something else just as feverishly. And we won't be able to remember what this was."
“和我们的小镇一样，这个国家现在沉溺于争斗。再过三年，我们又会因为别的事情争吵不休，到时候我们根本不会记得今天的情形。”
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