美國民主黨代會上的不祥預感
At the Democratic convention last week, I experienced an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu. Emblazoned across the arena was the rallying cry of the Hillary Clinton campaign — “Stronger Together”. It was a depressing reminder of “Stronger In,” — the slogan of the losing Remain campaign in Britain’s referendum on EU membership.
在上週的民主黨全國代表大會上，我體會到一種令人不安的似曾相識感。全場充斥着希拉里•克林頓(Hillary Clinton)的競選口號——“團結就是力量”(Stronger Together)。這讓人沮喪地想起了“留歐就是力量”(Stronger In)——這是在英國退歐公投中輸掉的留歐陣營的口號。
This similarity is more than an unfortunate coincidence. I would point to three parallels between Brexit and the Trump phenomenon that should worry the Clinton campaign. The first is the potency of immigration as an issue. The second is the way in which the Trump and Brexit campaigns have become vehicles for protest votes about economic insecurity. The third is the chasm between elite opinion and that of the white working class.
這種相似性不僅僅是令人遺憾的巧合。我會指出英國退歐和特朗普現象之間存在的3點相似之處，希拉里陣營應該對這些相似之處感到擔憂。第一點是移民問題的力量。第二點是特朗普和退歐陣營如何已經成了選民對經濟不安全感投下抗議票的工具。第三點是精英階層和白人勞動階層之間的意見分歧。
Both the Trump and Brexit campaigns have put the promise to control immigration at the centre of their operations. In the UK, the Brexiters’ demand to “take back control” was understood to mean, above all, a promise to stop the flow of immigrants from Europe. Mr Trump’s most famous campaign pledge is to “build the wall” and stop illegal immigration from Mexico to the US.
特朗普的競選活動和退歐拉票活動均把控制移民的承諾置於運作的中心位置。在英國，退歐派“奪回控制權”的要求可以說首先意味着阻止移民從歐洲涌入的承諾。特朗普最著名的競選承諾是“豎起高牆”、阻止墨西哥非法移民進入美國。
In both the UK and the US, immigration has become a powerful symbol of the elite’s alleged willingness to undermine the living standards of the working class by allowing in cheap labour from overseas. The Brexit and Trump campaigns have also fused anxiety about immigration with fear of terrorism. Mr Trump has notoriously called for a ban on all Muslims entering the US. The Brexit campaign featured posters about the refugee crisis in the EU, playing to concerns about an inflow of Muslim immigrants from the Middle East.
無論在英國還是美國，移民問題已經成爲了一個有力的符號，象徵着精英階層聽任廉價海外勞動力進入本國、損害勞動階層生活水平的所謂意願。英國退歐拉票活動和特朗普的競選活動還把對恐怖主義的恐懼與對移民問題的擔憂攪在一起。衆所周知，特朗普呼籲禁止所有穆斯林進入美國。退歐陣營四處張貼有關歐盟難民危機的海報，利用民衆對中東穆斯林移民涌入英國的擔憂。
In the British case, the Remain campaign never really found a way to dealing with public anxiety about immigration, and the Democrats may be falling into the same trap. Mrs Clinton’s declaration last week that “We will not build a wall” drew huge cheers from the floor of the convention. But the British experience suggests that declarations of this sort might simply be interpreted as a refusal to engage with public concerns about migration. Mr Trump is certainly making that case, tweeting recently that “Hillary’s vision is a borderless world where working people have no power, no jobs, no safety”.
英國的留歐陣營始終未能真正找到平息民衆對移民顧慮的方法，民主黨可能也會在這個問題上栽跟頭。希拉里上週宣佈“我們不會豎起高牆”，引發了黨代會現場的高聲歡呼。但是英國的經驗表明，此類宣言可能只會被解讀爲拒絕迴應公衆對移民的擔憂。特朗普當然會主張這種解讀，他最近在Twitter上稱“希拉里的願景是一個沒有邊界線的世界，在那個世界裏勞動階層沒有權力、沒有工作，也沒有保障”。
Mr Trump’s claim to champion the poor and those with precarious jobs is also politically potent. Something similar certainly worked in Britain, where the Remain campaign failed to anticipate that the referendum would turn into a vehicle for a protest vote about jobs and living standards. In the UK, most people have not seen any rise in real wages since the financial crisis of 2008, and many regions of the country have suffered economic stagnation for decades.
特朗普聲稱支持窮人和那些工作無保障的勞動者的做法，在政治上也是有效的。類似的做法在英國肯定起到了作用，那裏的留歐陣營未能預料到退歐公投會變成民衆針對就業和生活水平投下抗議票的工具。在英國，自2008年金融危機以來，多數人的實際薪資水平都沒有任何上漲，英國很多地區都經歷了數十年的經濟停滯。
After the Brexit vote, the journalist John Lanchester observed: “To be born in many places in Britain is to suffer an irreversible life-long defeat — a truncation of opportunity, of education, of access to power, of life expectancy.” The same could be said of many left-behindareas in the US, where average real wages have actually fallendropped in recent decades. The life expectancy of white Americans without a college degree has also fallen since 2000, driven, according to The New York Times, by an “epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse”. A recently released Harris poll released last year showed that 85 per cent of Americans believe the people running the country do not care about them and 81 per cent believe the rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer.
在英國退歐公投後，記者約翰•蘭徹斯特(John Lanchester)評論道：“生在英國很多地方，就意味着要遭遇一生的註定挫敗——機遇、教育、權力的享有、預期壽命都要打個折扣。”同樣的話也適用於美國很多落後地區——最近數十年這些地區的平均實際工資實際上不升反降。自2000年以來，沒有大學文憑的美國白人羣體的預期壽命也出現下滑，據《紐約時報》(The New York Times)報道，這是由於“藥物濫用造成的自殺和病痛（在這一羣體中）普遍存在”。去年公佈的一份哈里斯(Harris)民調顯示：85%的美國人認爲這個國家的掌權者不在乎他們；81%的人認爲富人越來越富，而窮人則越來越窮。
The problem for Mrs Clinton — and it is a big one — is that she embodies the political establishment that a large majority of Americans now appears to despise. The Democrats make the obvious point that Mr Trump’s own life is a monument to his indifference to ordinary people. But the more the US elite and “mainstream media” unites against Mr Trump, the more they underline his status as an anti-system candidate.
希拉里的問題——也是一個大問題——在於她代表瞭如今大多數美國人看上去鄙視的政治建制。民主黨指出了顯而易見的一點，即特朗普自己的人生就是他對平民百姓漠不關心的證明。但是美國精英階層和“主流媒體”越是團結起來反對特朗普，他們就越是凸顯出特朗普反體制候選人的身份。
Some argue that Mr Trump’s base in the white working class is too small to carry him to victory in November. But that problem may not apply if the Republicans can significantly increase voter turnout. Once again, the British experience is relevant. The victory for Brexit was propelled over the line by secured by many working-class voters who had not bothered to turn out in the recent general elections.
一些人認爲，特朗普在白人勞動階層的選民基礎太小，不足以支撐他在11月的總統大選中獲勝。但是，如果共和黨可以大幅提高選民投票率，這個問題可能就不成立了。在這裏，英國的經歷也有參考意義。退歐運動之所以取得了勝利，靠的是很多在最近幾次大選中懶得去投票的勞動階級選民。
In the UK, the political elite’s disconnect with working-class opinion led most commentators to dismiss the many opinion polls that suggested Britain was going to vote Leave. In the US last week, I encountered a similar incredulity among many American pundits whose own horror of Mr Trump makes it almost impossible for them to countenance the idea that he might actually be their next president.
在英國，政治精英的意見與勞動階級脫節，導致多數評論人士忽視了很多表明英國將投票退出歐盟的民調結果。上週，在美國，我發現美國很多權威人士存在類似的問題，他們個人對特朗普的極度厭惡，使得他們不可能接受特朗普可能真的會成爲下一任總統的想法。
The similarities between the Brexit and the Trump campaigns are striking, but there are also important differences. Most obviously that while the Brexit campaign used a dog whistle to appeal to racist sentiment, Mr Trump is using a foghorn.
英國退歐公投和特朗普競選活動之間的相似之處顯而易見，但是兩者之間也存在重要區別。最明顯的是，退歐陣營用針對特定人羣的隱蔽信息呼喚種族主義情緒，而特朗普用的則是高音喇叭。
The most prominent Brexit campaigners, such as Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, strove to remain outwardly affable during the referendum campaign. By contrast, Mr Trump has specialised in the erratic and abusive.
鮑里斯•約翰遜(Boris Johnson)和邁克爾•戈夫(Michael Gove)等最著名的退歐派成員在公投拉票期間努力維持表面上的親善。相比之下，特朗普則特別擅長髮表讓人大跌眼鏡的粗魯言論。
It is certainly possible that Mr Trump’s behaviour will turn off enough voters to deliver victory to Mrs Clinton in November. Having lived through Brexit, I would not count on it.
特朗普的行爲當然有可能嚇跑足夠多選民，讓希拉里在11月的大選中勝出。但在經歷了英國退歐公投後，我不會認爲肯定會這樣了。
