经济学人 | 希拉里的新书 | 2017.09.14 | 总第1047期

MANY Democrats were dreading Hillary Clinton’s chronicle of electoral failure, “What Happened”, which was published this week. The former First Lady was always more admired than loved by her party (a dirty secret that even the slickest Clinton-style stage-management of her rallies could not conceal), and her defeat by Donald Trump much of that grudging regard. Worse for her resentful supporters, in post-election interviews and leaked excerpts of the book, Mrs Clinton appeared to blame everyone but herself for her loss—including Senator Bernie Sanders, her rival in a rancorous primary contest that still divides the Trump-bruised Democrats. Many considered that disloyal. “If I were her, I would move on,” advised David Axelrod, a Democratic guru. A columnist for the New York Daily News was more forthright: “Hey, Hillary Clinton, shut the f--- up and go away already.”

希拉里的纪实作品《发生了什么》于本周问世，这令许多民主党人胆颤心惊。她在书中叙述了自己的败选经历。党内盟友对于这位前第一夫人的态度，总是赞赏要多余爱戴（这是个肮脏的秘密，即使她在群众大会表现出再圆滑的克林顿式控场力，也难以掩盖）。而自她落败于特朗普，这份敬意大大减少，对于她易被激怒的支持者尤甚。在竞选结束后的访谈里，以及新书《发生了什么》的节选内容中，希拉里将败选怪罪到除自己以外的所有人身上——包括参议员伯尼·桑德斯。这位她初选时的劲敌，使受到特朗普重创的民主党人四分五裂。民主党领袖大卫·阿克塞尔罗德建议道“如果我是希拉里，则会换个别的话题。”一位纽约日报的专栏作家更加坦率：“嘿，希拉里，你还是闭嘴走开为妙。”

• Slickest 圆滑的

• rallies公众集会，群众大会（尤指支持某信念或政党的）

• grudging 不情愿的，勉强的

• excerpts摘录；节选

• guru 专家; 权威

Mrs Clinton’s book will rile her critics even more. Granted, she owns up to her errors, including a naive faith in the power of wonkish ideas to placate angry voters, and some embarrassing bloopers. Celebrating the death of coal-mining in Ohio is (no kidding) a particular regret. Mrs Clinton also acknowledges her “limitations” as a campaigner, including the carefulness of a rote-learned performer, which many voters find insincere: “I wear my composure like a suit of armour.” Yet not for a moment does Mrs Clinton believe she caused her defeat. Most of the 494-page tome (her books, produced with trusted aides, are always too long) is dedicated to causes beyond her control. Mr Sanders is among them; Mrs Clinton accuses him, among other dirty tricks, of portraying her as a “corrupt corporatist who couldn’t be trusted…paving the way for Trump’s “Crooked Hillary” campaign”. But that is trifling, set against her three biggest gripes.

希拉里的新书会让她的批评者更加愤怒。假定她坦白承认自己的错误，包括天真地相信采用政策专家的建议就可以平息选民的怒火，以及一些令人尴尬的出丑经历。她对俄亥俄州煤矿业的终结表示祝贺（这不是玩笑），尤其令人失望。她还承认自己身为总统竞选人的局限性，包括太过谨慎。而一些言语行动上的生搬硬套让许多选民觉得她不够真诚：“我把镇静当成盔甲保护自己。”然而她从未相信败局是由自己造成。在这本494页的书里（希拉里的书由其亲信出版，往往都很长），大部分篇幅都在描述超出她掌控范围的因素。桑德斯先生是其中之一；希拉里指责他有许多卑鄙的把戏，其中之一便是将她描述为腐败而且不可信的统合主义者，使得特朗普有理由鼓吹她竞选的不正当性。但这些和希拉里的三大抱怨比起来，都不值一提。

• Rile 惹恼，激怒

• wonkish ideas 书呆子的想法

• bloopers 当众出的洋相；出丑

• rote 死记硬背，生搬硬套

• tome 大而重的书，巨著

• corporatist 统合主义者

One is the savaging of her reputation by an updated version of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” she accused, with some justification, of smearing her and her husband in the 1990s—including radical conservative donors, fake-news peddlers and Russian hackers and their internet bots, all egged on, wittingly or not, by a Republican candidate who “trafficked in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far reaches of the internet”. The results were devastating. Out canvassing in leafy suburbs, Mrs Clinton’s supporters were politely assured their candidate “had killed someone, sold drugs and committed any number of unreported crimes”. When, a month after the election, an apparently sane man shot up a pizza parlour in Washington, DC, in a bid to free the child sex slaves he believed Mrs Clinton had imprisoned there, no one was surprised.

三大抱怨之一是桑德斯通过升级“巨大右翼阴谋”的言论，严重诋毁了她的声誉。上世纪90年代，希拉里曾谴责“右翼阴谋”言论，带着些许理直气壮，说这是对她和克林顿的抹黑。克林顿夫妇被认为是激进的保守主义者，假消息贩子，俄罗斯的黑客和网络机器人，一切都是在一位共和党候选人有意或者无意的怂恿下进行的。该人贩卖那些来自超市小报和网络边缘地带的黑暗阴谋论。其后果是在灾难性的。在郊区游说期间，该人不失礼地令希拉里的支持者相信：她“谋害人命，贩卖毒品，有许多未被披露的罪行。”选举开始后的一个月，在华盛顿，某位明显患有精神病的男子在一家披萨店开枪。他相信希拉里囚禁着一批儿童性奴，要求放他们自由。没人对此感到惊讶

• Canvassing 游说

A second complaint is the hyperventilating coverage mainstream outlets gave to Mrs Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while secretary of state. This, as she concedes, was a fatheaded blunder. But it broke no law, caused no security breach and, while frowned upon, was not especially unusual at the State Department. Yet it was the prevailing intrigue of the election, more incessantly discussed than any of Mr Trump’s manifold scandals. By one measure, television news devoted three times as much airtime to Mrs Clinton’s e-mails as to her entire policy agenda. Her third grievance is related—the late intervention into the election of James Comey, the then FBI director, to announce he had reopened, and then that he had closed, an investigation into Mrs Clinton’s e-mails—even as early voting was taking place.

抱怨之二，则是主流媒体对希拉里在任职国务卿期间使用私人邮箱办公一事进行的狂轰滥炸。正如她本人承认，这是个愚蠢的错误。但这种行为并不违法，也没造成安全漏洞，虽然惹人反感，在国务院也不是个例。然而，“邮件门”是大选举期间最大的阴谋，人们对其议论纷纷，热度超过特朗普所有形形色色的丑闻。电视新闻花来报道邮件门的时间，是宣传其整个政策议程的三倍。希拉里的抱怨之三也与此有关——前任联邦调查局局长詹姆斯·科米，在大选临近尾声时干涉其中。正当提前投票开始时，科米宣布重启对邮件门事件的调查，随后不了了之。

• Breach 缺口，违背

• frowned upon 惹人反感，令人不悦

Even admirers of Mrs Clinton will curl their toes at this. No one likes a sour loser. And Mrs Clinton’s account is sufficiently self-serving to be open to that charge. In particular, she blames the competing din of fake news for her failure to persuade voters that her economic plans—an infrastructure package, incentives for apprenticeships and so on— represented a compelling picture of future prosperity. But Lexington listened hard to her economic speeches and could not identify the main point of them—a shortcoming her book repeats. Mrs Clinton insists she had “fundamental differences” with the populist Mr Sanders, while also suggesting they were only of degree—he vowed to soak the rich and splurge on everyone else; she says that would be nice, but tricky to pull off, so advocates a watery version of the same. This will not discourage the many Democrats who believe Mrs Clinton’s failure to impart a compelling economic vision cost her the election—especially as many of them back Mr Sanders’s vision.

这次连希拉里的追随者也会难为情。没人会喜欢尖酸的失败者。对于公开接受指控一事，希拉里在书中竭力为自己辩护。她尤其指责媒体竞相报道的虚假消息，称她未能说服选民相信自己的经济计划（比如提出一项基础设施建设方案，鼓励学徒制等等）会带领美国走向繁荣。本栏目记者仔细聆听了她有关经济的发言，但未能从中找出重点，她的新书重复了这个缺点。希拉里坚持认为自己和民粹主义者桑德斯有本质区别，同时又暗示只在程度上有所差异。桑德斯发誓会改变美国人财富严重不均的现状；希拉里觉得他的想法很不错，但是实施起来有难度，于是提倡另一版本的提案，和桑德斯的内容没有区别，只是更加冗长。

• apprenticeship  n. 学徒；学徒制

To the devil her due

为希拉里说句公道话

But there is a problem with that: Mrs Clinton’s analysis is basically sound. Had it not been for the uncontrollable “headwinds” she describes, she would probably have won, despite her shortcomings. Going into the election, she was up by six points; then Mr Comey intruded and her lead evaporated, as undecided voters recoiled from this clinching evidence of her perfidy. Of course, had she been a better campaigner, including on economic issues, she might have been further ahead. But that is harder to quantify; in fact, in the rustbelt states where she is thought to have lost the election, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, she polled well on economic issues. There is also little reason to think a more populist message would have helped her there. The white, working-class voters who, continuing a decades-old-trend, went from Democrat to Republican in those states, wanted less immigration, not more handouts for immigrants (among others) to enjoy.

但是其中存在一个问题：希拉里的分析基本是合理的。尽管希拉里有不足之处，要不是那些被她形容成“墙头草”的选民们太难控制，她可能已经胜券在握。在选举中，她一度领先六个百分点；之后科米从中干涉，选民们本来就犹豫不决，再加上希拉里背信的证据确凿，他们便纷纷退缩，于是希拉里失去优势。当然，如果希拉里是个更厉害的竞选者，在经济议题上做得更加出色的话，她本可能领先更多。但是这是难以量化的。事实上，在希拉里不太看好的中西部州，比如密歇根、威斯康星和宾夕法尼亚，她在经济议题上的得票率反而挺高。即使采取更偏向平民的策略，应该也帮助不大。在这些州，原来支持民主党的白领阶层和工薪阶层投票者转向支持共和党，这是几十年来的大趋势。他们不愿意接受难民，更不愿意提供救济品给难民享受。

• recoiled 退缩

• clinching evidence 决定性依据

• Perfidy背信弃义

In this election, policies, messaging and campaign effectiveness hardly seemed to matter. It was decided by partisanship and internet-borne misinformation—the enabling environment and means by which Mr Trump and his proxies destroyed Mrs Clinton. Wonk that she is (“If you’re unconvinced that friends are worth it, consider the data,” she writes), that is a surpassing humiliation. For her party, it is a warning not to resort to the comfort-blanket of left-wing policy. It might make the Democrats feel better; it probably cannot restore them to power.

在这场角逐中，在政策，宣传和竞选上作出的努力似乎都无关紧要。党派偏见以及误传的网络消息，给特朗普和其代理人打败希拉里营造了有利环境，并提供有效手段，因此胜负已被决定。对于政策专家希拉里（“如果你不相信朋友值得信任，那就看看数据吧”她在书中写道），这是个莫大的耻辱。（期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~）

• Partisanship 党派偏见

• Wonk 死抠政策细枝末节的人，政策专家

审核 丨卿和

翻译 丨 木三阳     

图文编辑 丨饶小刀

责任编辑 丨 杨艺