【经济学人】民主党命运遭劫丨2016.11.12丨总第740期

All hat and no president

徒有其表 名不副实

A WEEK ago, demography was destiny for the Democrats. Along with many Republicans, they assumed—perhaps complacently—that swelling minority populations and left-leaning younger voters would form a winning electoral block, soon even an indomitable one. Instead they lost not only the White House but several governorships, their gains in Congress only pifflingly compensating for the attrition they have suffered, from the Senate to state houses, during Barack Obama’s presidency. In Kentucky’s house of representatives they lost their last legislative chamber in the South, a region in which their demographic hopes were strongest, but which instead remains a Republican bulwark.

一周前，人口数量决定了民主党的命运。同很多共和党人一样，民主党人可能还沾沾自喜，他们认为激情满满的少数民族和左倾年轻支持者会组成一个获胜的竞选团体，甚至很快会打造成一支顽强不屈的战队。然而，在奥巴马任职期间，他们不仅失去了政府的领导权，还有很多州长职位，在国会中获得的议席只是些许弥补了从参议院到州议会的失利。在肯塔基州的众议院，他们失去了他们在南部最后的立法会议厅，这是他们最有希望获得最多选民的区域，却反而成了共和党的堡垒。

共和党大象吉祥物

The autopsy will be as rancorous as the fallout among Republicans would have been had Hillary Clinton won. For her party’s populist faction, the result confirms that she was a centrist throwback, a milksop out of touch with the public mood. For its centrists, some of the blame belongs to the left-wingers and their grouching. After the recriminations, this internecine row will focus on three linked issues.

一旦希拉里获胜，共和党内部会争吵不休。现在的分析也如同上述可能的结果一样充斥不满之辞。于希拉里一方的民粹主义派而言，结果证实了她是退步的中立派，一个脱离了公共情绪的懦弱的人。中立派指责左派，批评他们总是满腹牢骚。指责过后，两党之间的争斗将会集中在三个相关的事件上。

First, strategy. For some, the debacle proves that the coalition on which Mrs Clinton relied—built around college-educated liberals, millennials and minorities—was insufficient and will be for a while, not least since Republican legislatures will persist in their gerrymandering and voter-suppression efforts. Thus the party must reconvert some of the white, blue-collar voters in the Rust Belt who clinched the White House for Donald Trump. Another reading is that it must emulate Mr Trump’s approach, by maximising turnout in existing constituencies. The poor Democratic showing in multiracial Milwaukee and Detroit, which helps to explain Mrs Clinton’s defeats in Wisconsin and Michigan, supports that analysis.

首先，战略。选举失败证明，希拉里所信赖的联盟（联盟成员包括受过高等教育的自由党人，千禧一代和少数民族）是不可靠的，尤其是因为共和党立法机关极力改变选举区划分，压制选举人，这个联盟将会很快瓦解。因此民主党一定策反铁锈地带支持特朗普入住白宫的部分白人，蓝领工人。另一个解读是民主党一定会效仿特朗普的方法，最大限度地增加目前选区的人数。在多民族的密尔沃基和底特律两州民主党的乏善可陈的表现，可以解释希拉里威斯康星和密西根州的失败原因，也证实了这种分析。

• not least : 尤其，特别是

The corollary of this dispute is policy. Democrats, like other vanquished centre-left parties in the West, must decide if beating their opponents means joining them, or whether, morally and practically, they can’t. For some Mrs Clinton’s renunciation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership represented an insufficient disavowal of free-trade; they also regarded Mrs Clinton’s foreign-policy stance as too hawkish. The trouble is that Mr Trump has cornered the market in protectionism and isolationism. And even if the Democrats conclude that disenchanted voters want a more activist government—a dubious proposition—Mr Trump’s vows to protect Social-Security spending (public pensions) would complicate a bid to expand their base with more largesse. A tougher line on immigration, meanwhile, risks alienating the Hispanic voters they will continue to need.

争论的必然结果是政策的变化。民主党人，像其他失败的西部左派政党一样，必须决定打败他们的对手是否意味着要与对手结盟，或者在道德和实践角度考虑，是否意味着不能与对手实现联合。对于某些人来说，希拉里放弃泛太平洋伙伴关系就意味着对自由贸易还有容忍度。他们也认为希拉里的外交政策过于强硬。麻烦的是, 特朗普已强行实行市场贸易保护主义和孤立主义。即使民主党人推断失望的选民想要一个更激进的政府-当然这还是模棱两可的结论-特朗普发誓要保护的社会保障支出(公共养老金)将会使民主党陷入麻烦，扩大政党基地的规模需要更大力量和投入。同时，移民问题上的强硬路线,也可能会疏远民主党仍然需要的西班牙裔选民。

Add to this the conundrum of Mr Obama’s legacy. The oddity in this rout is that the president himself is still popular: his approval rating rivals