【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 Ronald Reagan’s at the end of his second term. Yet his main reforms, above all the health-care expansion that was a party priority for decades, are set to be dismantled. The fact that low-income white voters are, numerically, Obamacare’s principal beneficiaries has failed to offset its technical glitches, market frictions and Republican attacks. Likewise many of Mr Obama’s environmental directives, cherished by mainstream Democrats but loathed in Appalachia and elsewhere, now look doomed.

还有奥巴马留下的难题。这次大败的奇葩之处是总统自己仍受欢迎，他的支持率与罗纳德·里根在他的第二个总统任期结束的时候支持率不相上下。但是，奥巴马的主要改革都将不复存在，其中最重要的是扩大医疗保健的覆盖率，民主党数十年来一直优先推进此项改革。从数量上看低收入的白人选民才是奥巴马医改的主要受益人这一事实未能弥补技术故障，消除市场摩擦，抵消共和党的攻击。同样地，奥巴马的许多环保指令，主流民主党拥护但在阿帕拉契亚还有别的地方遭到厌弃，现在看起来注定要失败。

• Rival n. 对手；[劳经] 竞争者v. 竞争

• above all 最重要的是

• Dismantled v. 拆除；逐步废除

• Numerically adv. 数字上；用数字表示

• Appalachia n. 阿帕拉契亚（美国东部一地区）

Finally, there is the question of leadership. The deficit of options that, along with her heft and cash, helped to ensure Mrs Clinton’s nomination has not been rectified; on the contrary. Kamala Harris of California is a promising addition to the Senate, but otherwise the roster of senior talent is still thin. It includes Cory Booker, a senator from New Jersey, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who stands to inherit the anti-establishment mantle from Bernie Sanders. Quite apart from her views, however—and shamingly tragic as it is to acknowledge—after the witch-burning atmosphere of Mr Trump’s rallies, it would be risky to adopt another female candidate in short order. The Democrats’ main talent reservoir is in big-city mayoralties, but those politicians often specialise in the sort of coalition of businessmen and minorities that flopped for Mrs Clinton.

最后是领袖能力问题。对于财政赤字的温和选择，还有自身的影响力和把持的资金确保希拉里的提名不会发生动摇。相反，加州的卡马拉·哈里斯最有希望加入参议院，但是名单上高级人才仍是人数寥寥，其中包括新泽西参议员柯瑞·布克，一定会延续伯尼·桑德斯的反体制思想的马萨诸塞州的伊丽莎白·沃伦。（期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的读者试译详解哟~）民主党的主要人才库是大城市的市长，但这些政客经常专注于与商人和少数民族的勾结在一起，从而导致了希拉里的失败。

• stand to do 一定会发生某事

• stand to sth 坚持，遵守

• anti-establishment  反体制

• in short order  立刻，马上

• Coalition n. 联合；结合，合并

• Flopped vi. 失败；扑拍；扑通落下；笨重地摔

民主党吉祥物驴

The leadership chatter seems premature, but isn’t. If he implements a fraction of his ideas, or governs as he campaigned, Mr Trump’s presidency will be a disaster. The Democrats would have a golden chance to oust him in four years—with a plausible figurehead. “This is painful,” Mrs Clinton said on the morning after, “and it will be for a long time.” How long depends on the response.

好像纠结领导能力问题还尚早，但其实不是。特朗普一旦就任总统，会付诸实施他的部分承诺，或者像领导竞选一样治理国家，这将是一场灾难。四年内，民主党会在最佳时机选出有能力的领袖取代特朗普，从而把他赶下台。上午在特朗普获胜之后，希拉里说：“很痛苦，而且会持续很长时间。”时间的长短取决于民众对特朗普统治的反应。

翻译 ▍栏目六第二组

审核 ▍开心学英语

编辑 ▍璃儿

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