美国民主党代会上的不祥预感

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.

在上周的民主党全国代表大会上，我体会到一种令人不安的似曾相识感。全场充斥着希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)的竞选口号——“团结就是力量”(Stronger Together)。这让人沮丧地想起了“留欧就是力量”(Stronger In)——这是在英国退欧公投中输掉的留欧阵营的口号。

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.

这种相似性不仅仅是令人遗憾的巧合。我会指出英国退欧和特朗普现象之间存在的3点相似之处，希拉里阵营应该对这些相似之处感到担忧。第一点是移民问题的力量。第二点是特朗普和退欧阵营如何已经成了选民对经济不安全感投下抗议票的工具。第三点是精英阶层和白人劳动阶层之间的意见分歧。

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.

特朗普的竞选活动和退欧拉票活动均把控制移民的承诺置于运作的中心位置。在英国，退欧派“夺回控制权”的要求可以说首先意味着阻止移民从欧洲涌入的承诺。特朗普最著名的竞选承诺是“竖起高墙”、阻止墨西哥非法移民进入美国。

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.

无论在英国还是美国，移民问题已经成为了一个有力的符号，象征着精英阶层听任廉价海外劳动力进入本国、损害劳动阶层生活水平的所谓意愿。英国退欧拉票活动和特朗普的竞选活动还把对恐怖主义的恐惧与对移民问题的担忧搅在一起。众所周知，特朗普呼吁禁止所有穆斯林进入美国。退欧阵营四处张贴有关欧盟难民危机的海报，利用民众对中东穆斯林移民涌入英国的担忧。

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”.

英国的留欧阵营始终未能真正找到平息民众对移民顾虑的方法，民主党可能也会在这个问题上栽跟头。希拉里上周宣布“我们不会竖起高墙”，引发了党代会现场的高声欢呼。但是英国的经验表明，此类宣言可能只会被解读为拒绝回应公众对移民的担忧。特朗普当然会主张这种解读，他最近在Twitter上称“希拉里的愿景是一个没有边界线的世界，在那个世界里劳动阶层没有权力、没有工作，也没有保障”。

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.

特朗普声称支持穷人和那些工作无保障的劳动者的做法，在政治上也是有效的。类似的做法在英国肯定起到了作用，那里的留欧阵营未能预料到退欧公投会变成民众针对就业和生活水平投下抗议票的工具。在英国，自2008年金融危机以来，多数人的实际薪资水平都没有任何上涨，英国很多地区都经历了数十年的经济停滞。

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.

在英国退欧公投后，记者约翰•兰彻斯特(John Lanchester)评论道：“生在英国很多地方，就意味着要遭遇一生的注定挫败——机遇、教育、权力的享有、预期寿命都要打个折扣。”同样的话也适用于美国很多落后地区——最近数十年这些地区的平均实际工资实际上不升反降。自2000年以来，没有大学文凭的美国白人群体的预期寿命也出现下滑，据《纽约时报》(The New York Times)报道，这是由于“药物滥用造成的自杀和病痛（在这一群体中）普遍存在”。去年公布的一份哈里斯(Harris)民调显示：85%的美国人认为这个国家的掌权者不在乎他们；81%的人认为富人越来越富，而穷人则越来越穷。

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.

希拉里的问题——也是一个大问题——在于她代表了如今大多数美国人看上去鄙视的政治建制。民主党指出了显而易见的一点，即特朗普自己的人生就是他对平民百姓漠不关心的证明。但是美国精英阶层和“主流媒体”越是团结起来反对特朗普，他们就越是凸显出特朗普反体制候选人的身份。

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.

一些人认为，特朗普在白人劳动阶层的选民基础太小，不足以支撑他在11月的总统大选中获胜。但是，如果共和党可以大幅提高选民投票率，这个问题可能就不成立了。在这里，英国的经历也有参考意义。退欧运动之所以取得了胜利，靠的是很多在最近几次大选中懒得去投票的劳动阶级选民。

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.

在英国，政治精英的意见与劳动阶级脱节，导致多数评论人士忽视了很多表明英国将投票退出欧盟的民调结果。上周，在美国，我发现美国很多权威人士存在类似的问题，他们个人对特朗普的极度厌恶，使得他们不可能接受特朗普可能真的会成为下一任总统的想法。

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.

英国退欧公投和特朗普竞选活动之间的相似之处显而易见，但是两者之间也存在重要区别。最明显的是，退欧阵营用针对特定人群的隐蔽信息呼唤种族主义情绪，而特朗普用的则是高音喇叭。

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.

鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)和迈克尔•戈夫(Michael Gove)等最著名的退欧派成员在公投拉票期间努力维持表面上的亲善。相比之下，特朗普则特别擅长发表让人大跌眼镜的粗鲁言论。

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.

特朗普的行为当然有可能吓跑足够多选民，让希拉里在11月的大选中胜出。但在经历了英国退欧公投后，我不会认为肯定会这样了。