The Phony Populism of Trump and Musk
特朗普和马斯克的虚假民粹主义

A Donald Trump rally is always a strange spectacle, and not only because of the candidate’s incoherence and bizarre detours into mental cul-de-sacs. (Journalists have faced some criticism for ignoring or recasting these moments, but The New York Times, for one, has finally said that the candidate’s mental state is a legitimate concern.) Trump’s rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a hall-of-fame entry in political weirdness: Few survivors of an attempted assassination hold a giant lawn party on the spot where they were wounded and someone in the crowd was killed.
唐纳德·特朗普的集会总是一个奇怪的景象，这不仅仅是因为候选人的不连贯和奇怪的思维死胡同。（记者们因忽视或重新诠释这些时刻而受到一些批评，但《纽约时报》终于表示，候选人的心理状态是一个合理的关注点。）特朗普周六在宾夕法尼亚州巴特勒的集会是政治怪异的名人堂入选作品：很少有刺杀未遂的幸存者会在他们受伤和有人在场被杀的地方举办一场盛大的草坪派对。

The candidate’s tirades are the most obviously bizarre part of his performances, but the nature of the gathering itself is a fascinating paradox. Thousands of people, mostly from the working and middle class, line up to spend time with a very rich man, a lifelong New Yorker who privately detests the heartland Americans in his audience—and applaud as he excoriates the “elites.”
候选人的长篇大论是他表演中最明显的怪异部分，但聚会本身的性质却是一个迷人的悖论。成千上万的人，主要来自工人阶级和中产阶级，排队与一位非常富有的人共度时光，这位终身生活在纽约的人私下里厌恶他观众中的心脏地带美国人——并在他痛斥“精英”时鼓掌。

This is a political charade: Trump and his running mate, the hillbilly turned multimillionaire J. D. Vance, have little in common with most of the people in the audience, no matter how much they claim to be one of them. The mask slips often: Even as he courts the union vote, Trump revels in saying how much he hated having to pay overtime to his workers. In another telling moment, Trump beamed while talking about how Vance and his wife both have Yale degrees, despite his usual excoriations of top universities. (He always carves out a glittering exception for his own days at the University of Pennsylvania, of course.)
这是一场政治闹剧：特朗普和他的竞选搭档、从乡下人变成的百万富翁 J.D.范斯与观众中的大多数人几乎没有共同点，无论他们声称自己多么像其中一员。面具常常滑落：即使他在争取工会选票，特朗普也乐于说他多么讨厌给工人支付加班费。在另一个耐人寻味的时刻，特朗普在谈到范斯和他的妻子都拥有耶鲁大学学位时面露笑容，尽管他通常会抨击顶尖大学。（当然，他总是为自己在宾夕法尼亚大学的日子开辟出一个闪亮的例外。）

Trump then welcomed the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, to the stage. Things got weirder from there, as Musk—who, it should be noted, is 53 years old—jumped around the stage like a concertgoing teenager who got picked out of the audience to meet the band. Musk then proceeded to explain how democracy is in danger—this, from a man who has turned the platform once known as Twitter into an open zone for foreign propaganda and has amplified various hoaxes. Musk has presented himself on his own platform as a champion of the voiceless and the oppressed, but his behavior reveals him as an enemy of speech that isn’t in his own interest.
特朗普随后欢迎世界首富埃隆·马斯克上台。事情从此变得更加奇怪，因为马斯克——需要指出的是，他 53 岁——像一个被选中与乐队见面的音乐会青少年一样在舞台上跳来跳去。随后，马斯克开始解释民主正面临危险——这来自一个将曾经被称为推特的平台变成外国宣传开放区的人，并且放大了各种骗局。马斯克在自己的平台上自我表现为无声者和被压迫者的捍卫者，但他的行为揭示了他是一个对不符合自己利益的言论的敌人。

What happened in Butler over the weekend, however, was not some unique American moment. Around the world, fantastically wealthy people are hoodwinking ordinary voters, warning that dark forces—always an indistinct “they” and “them”—are conspiring to take away their rights and turn their nation into an immense ghetto full of undesirables (who are almost always racial minorities or immigrants or, in the ideal narrative, both).
然而，周末在巴特勒发生的事情并不是某种独特的美国时刻。在世界各地，极其富有的人们正在欺骗普通选民，警告说黑暗势力——总是模糊的“他们”和“它们”——正在阴谋夺走他们的权利，并将他们的国家变成一个充满不受欢迎者的巨大贫民区（这些人几乎总是种族少数群体或移民，或者在理想叙事中，两者兼而有之）。

The British writer Martin Wolf calls this “pluto-populism,” a brash attempt by people at the top of the financial and social pyramid to stay afloat by capering as ostensibly anti-establishment, pro-worker candidates. In Britain, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed the whole notion of Brexit behind closed doors, and then supported the movement as his ticket into 10 Downing Street anyway. In Italy, a wealthy entrepreneur helped start the “Five-Star Movement,” recruiting the comedian Beppe Grillo to hold supposedly anti-elitist events such as Fuck-Off Day; they briefly joined a coalition government with a far-right populist party, Lega, some years ago. Similar movements have arisen around the world, in Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, and other nations.
英国作家马丁·沃尔夫称之为“冥王星民粹主义”，这是金融和社会金字塔顶端的人们试图通过表现得貌似反建制、支持工人的候选人来维持生计的大胆尝试。在英国，前首相鲍里斯·约翰逊在闭门会议上驳斥了脱欧的整个概念，但随后还是支持了这一运动，作为他进入唐宁街 10 号的通行证。在意大利，一位富有的企业家帮助创立了“五星运动”，招募喜剧演员贝佩·格里洛举办所谓的反精英活动，如“滚蛋日”；几年前，他们曾与一个极右翼民粹主义政党联盟，意大利联盟，短暂组成联合政府。类似的运动在世界各地兴起，包括土耳其、巴西、匈牙利和其他国家。

These movements are all remarkably alike: They claim to represent the common voter, especially the “forgotten people” and the dispossessed, but in reality, the base voters for these groups are not the poorest or most disadvantaged in their society. Rather, they tend to be relatively affluent. (Think of the January 6 rioters, and how many of them were able to afford flights, hotels, and expensive gear. It’s not cheap to be an insurrectionist.) As Simon Kuper noted in 2020, the “comfortably off populist voter is the main force behind Trump, Brexit and Italy’s Lega,” a fact ignored by opportunistic politicians who instead claim to be acting on behalf of stereotypes of impoverished former factory workers, even if there are few such people left to represent.
这些运动都非常相似：它们声称代表普通选民，特别是“被遗忘的人”和被剥夺者，但实际上，这些群体的基础选民并不是他们社会中最贫穷或最弱势的人。相反，他们往往相对富裕。（想想 1 月 6 日的暴徒，他们中有多少人能够负担得起航班、酒店和昂贵的装备。成为一名叛乱者并不便宜。）正如西蒙·库珀在 2020 年指出的那样，“富裕的民粹主义选民是特朗普、英国脱欧和意大利联盟的主要力量”，这一事实被机会主义政治家忽视，他们声称代表贫困的前工厂工人的刻板印象，即使这样的代表几乎已经所剩无几。

One of the pioneers of pluto-populism, of course, is the late Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a rake and a grifter who stayed in office as part of staying out of jail. That strategy should sound familiar to Americans, but even more familiar is the way the Italian scholar Maurizio Viroli, in a book about Italian politics, notes how Berlusconi deformed Italian democracy by seducing its elites into joining the big con against the ordinary voter: Italy, he wrote, is a free country, but Viroli calls such freedom the “liberty of servants,” a sop offered to people who are subjects in a new kind of democracy that is really just the “court at the center of which sits a signore surrounded by a plethora of courtiers, who are in turn admired and envied by a multitude of individuals with servile souls.”
当然，普鲁托民粹主义的先驱之一是已故的意大利总理西尔维奥·贝卢斯科尼，他是一个花花公子和骗子，因而在任职期间避免入狱。这个策略对美国人来说应该听起来很熟悉，但更熟悉的是意大利学者毛里齐奥·维罗利在一本关于意大利政治的书中提到，贝卢斯科尼如何通过诱惑精英加入对普通选民的大骗局来扭曲意大利民主：他写道，意大利是一个自由的国家，但维罗利称这种自由为“仆人的自由”，这是对那些在一种新型民主中成为臣民的人所提供的安慰，这种民主实际上只是“一个中心坐着一位< i id=1>领主的宫廷，周围环绕着众多的朝臣，而这些朝臣又被一群有奴性灵魂的人所钦佩和嫉妒。”

The appeals of the pluto-populists work because they target people who care little about policy but a great deal about social revenge. These citizens feel like others whom they dislike are living good lives, which to them seems an injustice. Worse, this itching sense of resentment is the result not of unrequited love but of unrequited hate: Much like the townies who feel looked down upon by the local college kids, or the Red Sox fans who are infuriated that Yankees fans couldn’t care less about their tribal animus, these voters feel ignored and disrespected.
冥王星民粹主义者的呼吁之所以有效，是因为他们针对的是那些对政策漠不关心但对社会报复非常关注的人。这些公民觉得他们不喜欢的其他人过得很好，这在他们看来似乎是一种不公。更糟糕的是，这种痒痒的怨恨感并不是由于单相思，而是由于未被回报的仇恨：就像那些感到被当地大学生看不起的镇民，或者那些对扬基球迷毫不在乎他们的部落仇恨感到愤怒的红袜球迷，这些选民感到被忽视和不尊重。

Who better to be the agent of their revenge than a crude and boorish magnate who commands attention, angers and frightens the people they hate, and intends to control the political system so that he cannot be touched by it?
谁比一个粗俗无礼、引人注目的大亨更适合成为他们复仇的代理人，他激怒并恐吓他们所仇恨的人，并打算控制政治系统，以便自己不受其影响？

Musk, for his part, is the perfect addition to this crew. Rich beyond imagination, he still has the wheedling affect of a needy youngster who requires (and demands) attention. Like Trump, he seems unable to believe that although money can buy many things—luxury digs, expensive lawyers, obsequious staff—it cannot buy respect. For people such as Musk and Trump, this popular rejection is baffling and enraging.
马斯克在这支团队中是完美的补充。富有得超乎想象，他仍然有着一个需要（并且要求）关注的年轻人的乞求态度。像特朗普一样，他似乎无法相信，尽管金钱可以购买许多东西——奢华的住所、昂贵的律师、谄媚的员工——但它无法购买尊重。对于像马斯克和特朗普这样的人来说，这种公众的拒绝令人困惑和愤怒。

Trump and those like him thus make a deal with the most resentful citizens in society: Keep us up in the penthouses, and we’ll harass your enemies on your behalf. We’ll punish the people you want punished. In the end, however, the joke is always on the voters: The pluto-populists don’t care about the people cheering them on. Few scores will truly be settled, and life will only become harder for everyone who isn’t wealthy or powerful enough to resist the autocratic policies that such people will impose on everyone, regardless of their previous support.
特朗普和那些像他的人因此与社会中最愤恨的公民达成交易：让我们住在顶层公寓，我们就会替你们骚扰敌人。我们会惩罚你想惩罚的人。。 然而，最终，笑话总是落在选民身上：这些富豪民粹主义者并不关心那些为他们欢呼的人。真正的恩怨很少会得到解决，生活只会对那些不够富有或强大以抵抗这些人施加的专制政策的每个人变得更加艰难，无论他们之前的支持如何。

When the dust settles, Trump and Vance will still be rich and powerful (as will Musk, whose fortune and power transcends borders in a way that right-wing populists usually claim to hate). For the many Americans who admire them, little will change; their lives will not improve, just as they did not during Trump’s first term. Millions of us, regardless of whom we voted for, will have to fend off interference in our lives from an authoritarian government—especially if we are, for example, a targeted minority, a woman in need of health care, or a member of a disfavored immigrant community.
当尘埃落定时，特朗普和范斯仍然会富有而有权势（马斯克也是，他的财富和权力以一种右翼民粹主义者通常声称厌恶的方式超越国界）。对于许多崇拜他们的美国人来说，几乎不会有什么变化；他们的生活不会改善，就像在特朗普的第一任期内一样。我们中的数百万，无论投票给谁，都将不得不抵御来自专制政府对我们生活的干预——尤其是如果我们是，例如，某个被针对的少数群体、需要医疗保健的女性，或是不受欢迎的移民社区的成员。

This is not freedom: As Viroli warned his fellow citizens, “If we are subjected to the arbitrary or enormous power of a man, we may well be free to do more or less what we want, but we are still servants.”
这不是自由：正如维罗利警告他的同胞，“如果我们受到一个人的任意或巨大权力的支配，我们可能在做我们想做的事情上相对自由，但我们仍然是仆人。”

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