Trump Voters Got What They Wanted
特朗普选民得到了他们想要的

Democrats and liberal pundits are already trying to figure out how the Trump campaign not only bested Kamala Harris in the “Blue Wall” states of the Midwest and the Rust Belt, but gained on her even in areas that should have been safe for a Democrat. Almost everywhere, Donald Trump expanded his coalition, and this time, unlike in 2016, he didn’t have to thread the needle of the Electoral College to win: He can claim the legitimacy of winning the popular vote.
民主党人和自由派评论员已经在试图弄清楚特朗普竞选团队是如何在中西部和锈带的“蓝墙”州不仅战胜了卡马拉·哈里斯，而且在本应对民主党安全的地区也对她有所增益。几乎在每个地方，唐纳德·特朗普扩大了他的联盟，这一次，与 2016 年不同，他不必在选举人团中走钢丝来获胜：他可以声称赢得普选的合法性。

Trump’s opponents are now muttering about the choice of Tim Walz, the influence of the Russians, the role of the right-wing media, and whether President Joe Biden should not have stepped aside in favor of Harris. Even the old saw about “economic anxiety” is making a comeback.
特朗普的对手们现在在低声议论蒂姆·沃尔兹的选择、俄罗斯的影响、右翼媒体的角色，以及乔·拜登总统是否不应该让位于哈里斯。甚至关于“经济焦虑”的老生常谈也在卷土重来。

These explanations all have some merit, but mostly, they miss the point. Yes, some voters still stubbornly believe that presidents magically control the price of basic goods. Others have genuine concerns about immigration and gave in to Trump’s booming call of fascism and nativism. And some of them were just never going to vote for a woman, much less a Black woman.
这些解释都有一定的道理，但大多数情况下，它们偏离了重点。是的，一些选民仍然固执地相信总统可以神奇地控制基本商品的价格。其他人对移民有真正的担忧，并屈服于特朗普对法西斯主义和本土主义的强烈呼声。而他们中的一些人根本就不会投票给女性，更不用说一位黑人女性了。

But in the end, a majority of American voters chose Trump because they wanted what he was selling: ⁠⁠a nonstop reality show of rage and resentment.⁠⁠ Some Democrats, still gripped by the lure of wonkery, continue to scratch their heads over which policy proposals might have unlocked more votes, but that was always a mug’s game. Trump voters never cared about policies, and he rarely gave them any. (Choosing to be eaten by a shark rather than electrocuted might be a personal preference, but it’s not a policy.) His rallies involved long rants about the way he’s been treated, like a giant therapy session or a huge family gathering around a bellowing, impaired grandpa.
但最终，大多数美国选民选择了特朗普，因为他们想要他所提供的：一场不断上演的愤怒和怨恨的真人秀。一些民主党人仍然被政策的诱惑所吸引，继续思考哪些政策提案可能会赢得更多选票，但这始终是一场愚蠢的游戏。特朗普的选民从来不关心政策，而他也很少给他们任何政策。（选择被鲨鱼吃掉而不是被电击可能是一种个人偏好，但这不是政策。）他的集会涉及长时间的咆哮，谈论他受到的对待，就像一场巨大的治疗会议或一个围绕着咆哮、受损的祖父的大型家庭聚会。

Back in 2021, I wrote a book about the rise of “illiberal populism,” the self-destructive tendency in some nations that leads people to participate in democratic institutions such as voting while being hostile to democracy itself, casting ballots primarily to punish other people and to curtail everyone’s rights—even their own. These movements are sometimes led by fantastically wealthy faux populists who hoodwink gullible voters by promising to solve a litany of problems that always seem to involve money, immigrants, and minorities. The appeals from these charlatans resonate most not among the very poor, but among a bored, relatively well-off middle class, usually those who are deeply uncomfortable with racial and demographic changes in their own countries.
在 2021 年，我写了一本关于“非自由民粹主义”崛起的书，这是一种在某些国家中自我毁灭的倾向，导致人们参与民主制度，如投票，同时对民主本身持敌对态度，主要是为了惩罚其他人并限制每个人的权利——甚至是他们自己的。这些运动有时由极其富有的伪民粹主义者领导，他们通过承诺解决一系列似乎总是涉及金钱、移民和少数群体的问题来欺骗轻信的选民。这些骗子的呼吁最能引起那些相对富裕的中产阶级的共鸣，而不是非常贫穷的人，通常是那些对自己国家的种族和人口变化感到深深不安的人。

And so it came to pass: Last night, a gaggle of millionaires and billionaires grinned and applauded for Trump. They were part of an alliance with the very people another Trump term would hurt—the young, minorities, and working families among them.
于是事情发生了：昨晚，一群百万富翁和亿万富翁为特朗普微笑并鼓掌。他们与另一个特朗普任期将伤害的群体结成了联盟——年轻人、少数族裔和工薪家庭。

⁠⁠Trump, as he has shown repeatedly over the years, couldn’t care less about any of these groups. He ran for office to seize control of the apparatus of government and to evade judicial accountability for his previous actions as president. Once he is safe, he will embark on the other project he seems to truly care about: the destruction of the rule of law and any other impediments to enlarging his power.
特朗普，正如他多年来反复表现出来的那样，根本不在乎这些群体。他竞选公职是为了控制政府机构，并逃避对他作为总统的先前行为的司法问责。一旦他安全，他将开始他似乎真正关心的另一个项目：破坏法治以及任何其他阻碍他扩大权力的障碍。⁠⁠

Americans who wish to stop Trump in this assault on the American constitutional order, then, should get it out of their heads that this election could have been won if only a better candidate had made a better pitch to a few thousand people in Pennsylvania. Biden, too old and tired to mount a proper campaign, likely would have lost worse than Harris; more to the point, there was nothing even a more invigorated Biden or a less, you know, female alternative could have offered. R⁠⁠acial grievances, dissatisfaction with life’s travails (including substance addiction and lack of education), and resentment toward the villainous elites in faraway cities cannot be placated by housing policy or interest-rate cuts.⁠⁠

No candidate can reason about facts and policies with voters who have no real interest in such things. ⁠⁠They like the promises of social revenge that flow from Trump, the tough-guy rhetoric, the simplistic “I will fix it” solutions. And he’s interesting to them, because he supports and encourages their conspiracist beliefs.⁠⁠ (I knew Harris was in trouble when I was in Pennsylvania last week for an event and a fairly well-off business owner, who was an ardent Trump supporter, told me that ⁠⁠Michelle Obama had conspired with the Canadians to change the state’s vote tally in 2020.⁠⁠ And that wasn’t even the weirdest part of the conversation.)

As Jonathan Last, editor of The Bulwark, put it in a social-media post last night: ⁠⁠The election went the way it did “because America wanted Trump. That’s it. People reaching to construct [policy] alibis for the public because they don’t want to grapple with this are whistling past the graveyard.”⁠⁠ Last worries that we might now be in a transition to authoritarianism of the kind Russia went through in the 1990s, but I visited Russia often in those days, and much of the Russian democratic implosion was driven by genuinely brutal economic conditions and the rapid collapse of basic public services. Americans have done this to themselves during a time of peace, prosperity, and astonishingly high living standards. An affluent society that thinks it is living in a hellscape is ripe for gulling by dictators who are willing to play along with such delusions.

The bright spot in all this is that Trump and his coterie must now govern. The last time around, Trump was surrounded by a small group of moderately competent people, and these adults basically put baby bumpers and pool noodles on all the sharp edges of government. This time, Trump will rule with greater power but fewer excuses, and he—and his voters—will have to own the messes and outrages he is already planning to create.
所有这一切中最光明的一点是，特朗普和他的随行人员现在必须执政。上一次，特朗普身边有一小群能力适中的人，这些成年人基本上在政府的所有尖锐边缘上放置了婴儿护栏和游泳池浮筒。这一次，特朗普将以更大的权力统治，但借口会更少，他和他的选民将不得不承担他已经计划要制造的混乱和愤怒。

Those voters expect that Trump will hurt others and not them. They will likely be unpleasantly surprised, much as they were in Trump’s first term. (He was, after all, voted out of office for a reason.) For the moment, some number of them have memory-holed that experience and are pretending that his vicious attacks on other Americans are just so much hot air.
这些选民期望特朗普会伤害其他人，而不是伤害他们。他们可能会感到不愉快的惊讶，就像他们在特朗普的第一任期时一样。（毕竟，他是有原因被投票罢免的。）目前，他们中的一些人已经忘记了那段经历，并假装他对其他美国人的恶毒攻击只是空话。

⁠⁠Trump, unfortunately, means most of what he says. In this election, he has triggered the unfocused ire and unfounded grievances of millions of voters. Soon we will learn whether he can still trigger their decency—if there is any to be found.
特朗普不幸的是，他所说的大部分话都是认真的。在这次选举中，他激起了数百万选民的无目的愤怒和毫无根据的不满。我们很快将了解到他是否仍然能够激发他们的善良——如果还有的话。⁠⁠

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