能把所有美國人都忽悠瘸了的特朗普
In the Art of the Deal, Donald Trump’s get rich quick guide, he explains how to seduce the customer.
在唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)那本快速致富指南——《交易的藝術》(Art of the Deal)中，他解釋了該如何誘惑客戶。
People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular, he wrote. I call it truthful hyperbole.
人們想要相信，某件東西是最大、最棒、最令人驚歎的，他寫道，我把這個稱爲誠實的誇張。
At the presidential debate on Monday night, roughly 100m Americans will be exposed to Mr Trump’s magical thinking.
在當地時間週一晚的總統競選辯論中，大約1億美國人將見識到特朗普的神奇思維。
The US can be great again by electing the best dealmaker in the world.
通過選舉全世界最會做交易的人當總統，美國可以再度變得偉大。
Some will see it as a con trick.
有些人將把這個視爲一場騙局。
Others will be willingly gullible.
也有人將願意輕信。
A worryingly large share will care little about his truthfulness either way.
無論哪種情況，令人擔憂的是，非常多的選民將不在乎他誠實與否。
Since all politicians lie, Mr Trump could hardly be worse than Hillary Clinton.
既然政客們都說謊，那麼特朗普幾乎不可能比希拉里•克林頓(Hillary Clinton)還糟。
That, in purest form, is today’s voter breakdown — a world apart from the founding fathers’ informed citizenry.
以上就是當今最純粹意義上的選民分析——他們與美國國父所處時代的洞察時局的公民截然不同。
In the hunt for the mother of all deals, Mr Trump has two key partners.
在逐鹿總統寶座（這是筆讓其他所有交易都黯然失色的大買賣）的過程中，特朗普有兩個關鍵的合作伙伴。
The first is the media.
第一個是媒體。
Conservatives believe the conventional media suffers from deep liberal bias.
保守主義者認爲，傳統媒體沾染了極深的自由主義偏見。
Most journalists probably are on the left by their measure.
以他們的標準衡量，大多數記者很可能屬於左翼。
But that is irrelevant.
但那是無關緊要的。
Mr Trump’s genius is to grasp that television’s desperate quest for ratings outweighs any ideological leanings.
特朗普的天才之處在於，他懂得電視臺對收視率的瘋狂追求壓倒了任何意識形態傾向。
Leslie Moonves, chairman of CBS, put it well earlier this year.
今年早些時候，哥倫比亞廣播公司(CBS)董事長萊斯利•穆恩夫斯(Leslie Moonves)很好地說明了這一點。
Mr Trump’s celebrity had worked miracles on the network’s advertising revenues.
特朗普的名氣極大地造福了CBS的廣告收入。
It may not be good for America, he said. But it’s damn good for CBS.
這或許對美國不好，他說，但對CBS簡直太好了。
In an age of ever-thinner gruel for the TV business, Mr Trump offers repeated sugar highs.
在一個電視業務日益萎縮的年代，特朗普引發了觀衆一波又一波的亢奮。
Monday’s record ratings will have little to do with Mrs Clinton.
週一創紀錄的收視率跟希拉里沒什麼關係。
The reality TV star has also turned liberal media values to his advantage.
這位電視真人秀明星也讓媒體的自由主義價值觀反過來爲己所用。
Fox News pays lip service to being even-handed.
福克斯新聞(Fox News)口頭上支持不偏不倚。
CNN, on the other hand, balances liberal voices with credible opposing ones.
另一方面，有線電視新聞網(CNN)也用有分量的反對意見平衡了自由主義的聲音。
At a time of acute polarisation, such false equivalence is gold dust to Mr Trump.
在一個分化嚴重的時代，這種虛假的對等對特朗普非常寶貴。
He may run a pay-for-play charitable foundation but so do the Clintons.
他或許管理着一家收錢辦事(pay-for-play)的慈善基金會，但克林頓夫婦也一樣。
He may refuse to release his tax returns.
他或許拒絕公佈他個人的納稅申報單。
But Mrs Clinton hid a private email server.
但希拉里隱藏了一個私人郵件服務器。
After a while, everyone seems equally bad.
一段時間之後，每個人看上去都一樣糟糕。
In reality, the Clinton Foundation raises billions for philanthropic causes and its published accounts meet industry standards.
事實上，克林頓基金會(Clinton Foundation)爲慈善事業募集了數十億元善款，而且其公佈的賬目是達到行業標準的。
Mr Trump, on the other hand, has used his to make political donations, buy portraits of himself and settle law suits.
相反，特朗普則一直利用他的基金會進行政治捐款、購買他本人的畫像以及了結官司。
It is possible details of his serial self-dealing — painstakingly chronicled in the Washington Post — will sway some voters.
他的一系列自我交易(self-dealing)——《華盛頓郵報》(Washington Post)不遺餘力地按時間順序列出了這些交易——的細節可能會動搖一些選民。
But they will have to switch off their TVs first.
但首先，他們將必須關掉電視。
Short of an Edward Snowden-type leak from the Internal Revenue Service, voters will never see his tax returns.
如果美國國稅局(IRS)不發生愛德華•斯諾登(Edward Snowden)式的泄密事件，選民們絕不會看到特朗普的納稅申報單。
Mr Trump’s other key ally is public cynicism, which is also fuelling the media’s ratings crisis.
特朗普的另一個關鍵同盟，是公衆懷疑一切的態度。這種態度也在加劇媒體的收視率危機。
In 1954, the career of Joseph McCarthy, the senator behind the red scare witch-hunts, came to a sudden end in a televised hearing when an attorney proclaimed: Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or recklessness.
1954年，在一次電視播放的聽證會上，主導了紅色恐怖追查迫害行動的參議員約瑟夫•麥卡錫(Joseph McCarthy)的職業生涯戛然而止。當時，一名律師宣告：直到這一刻，參議員，我想我從未真正估量過你的殘忍或輕率。
Have you no sense of decency, sir?
先生，你難道沒有一點起碼的正派嗎？
It is hard to imagine what — or who — could publicly shame Mr Trump.
我們很難想象出，什麼事情——或者哪個人——能當衆羞辱到特朗普。
The gatekeepers have gone.
守門人已經不在了。
In those days, figures like Walter Cronkite, the legendary news anchor, could turn opinion with a morally charged soliloquy.
在以往，傳奇式新聞主持人沃爾特•克朗凱特(Walter Cronkite)等人物，可以用一段拷問道德良心的獨白改變觀衆觀點。
Mr Cronkite’s authority drew from a middle ground that no longer exists.
克朗凱特的權威來自中立。
It hinged on the public’s trust that it was possible to be objective.
現在這種中立已不存在了。這種權威有賴於公衆相信它可以做到客觀公正。
In the absence of such trust, the best Mr Cronkite’s successors can do is resort to a hollow he said, she said neutrality — or drop the pretence altogether.
在這種信任喪失的情況下，克朗凱特的後輩能做的最多也只不過是訴諸雙方各執一詞的那種毫無意義的中立——或者乾脆不再假裝中立。
This, too, Mr Trump plays like a violin.
這一點也被特朗普姿勢純熟地爲己所用了。
Will it work on Monday night? Quite possibly.
這一套會在週一晚上奏效嗎？相當有可能。
Most of today’s TV anchors say it is the other candidate’s job, not the moderator’s, to correct factual errors.
如今多數的電視主持人都會說，糾正事實性錯誤是另一位候選人的工作，而不是主持人的工作。
Their favourite analogy is a sporting one in which best game is where the umpire’s role goes unnoticed.
他們最喜歡用體育裁判來類比自己的角色——沒人注意到裁判的角色的比賽，是最棒的比賽。
But the comparison does not stand up.
但這個類比是站不住腳的。
No soccer game would last a minute if it were up to the players to call out the opposing team’s fouls.
如果由球員來判斷對方球隊犯規，那麼沒有哪場足球比賽能持續一分鐘。
A fair referee will discipline players on merit.
公正的裁判會根據球員表現作出判罰。
If it means one team gets six yellow cards and the other only two, so be it.
如果這意味着一方拿到6張黃牌而另一方只拿到2張，那也只能這樣。
Nor will a referee be intimidated by the booing of the offending team’s fans.
裁判也不會被犯規球隊球迷的噓聲嚇倒。
By all accounts, Lester Holt, the NBC anchor, who will moderate the first debate, will try to be fair-minded.
一切信息顯示，將主持第一場辯論的美國全國廣播公司(NBC)主持人萊斯特•霍爾特(Lester Holt)會盡量不偏不倚。
But Mr Trump is playing games with his head.
但特朗普玩得聰明。
Mr Holt is a Democrat and therefore biased, he says, although voter records suggest that Mr Holt is a Republican.
他說，霍爾特是民主黨人，因此會存有偏見——儘管選民記錄表明霍爾特是共和黨人。
The whole event — and the general election — is probably rigged in Mrs Clinton’s favour, he claims.
特朗普宣稱，整場辯論——乃至整個大選——都很可能受到操縱、偏向希拉里。
It is worth marvelling at how well Mr Trump has played a conventionally weak hand.
特朗普如此漂亮地把常規而言的弱點轉化爲了優勢，簡直令人歎服。
He has branded CNN, which devotes just four per cent of its Clinton coverage to her policies — a third of what it has allocated to her email scandal — as biased. He calls it the Clinton News Network.
CNN對希拉里的報道中只有4%是講她的政策，三分之一都在講希拉里的郵件醜聞，而特朗普卻稱CNN帶有偏見，稱CNN爲希拉里新聞網（Clinton News Network，首字母縮寫也是CNN——譯者注）。
The leading outlets devoted more airtime to Mr Trump’s assertion that Mrs Clinton created Isis, than to her policies for defeating it.
主要媒體花了更多時間報道特朗普斷言希拉里創造了伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯蘭國(ISIS)，而不是希拉里提出的擊敗ISIS的政策。
The first was Trumpian invention.
前者是特朗普捏造的。
The second is serious business.
後者是一件嚴肅的事。
But Mr Trump grasps a truth about today’s low-trust democracy that still eludes others.
但特朗普知曉瞭如今缺乏信任的民主的真相，而其他人仍然不得而知。
People want to be entertained.
人們想要獲得娛樂。
I play to people’s fantasies, Mr Trump wrote in his best-seller.
我迎合人們的幻想，特朗普曾在他的暢銷書中寫道。
On that playing field, Mrs Clinton’s edge disappears.
在這個賽場上，希拉里優勢盡失。
As a species we are always vulnerable to deception.
容易受騙是人性的弱點。
Remember those Weimar types in early 1930s Germany? None of them could hold an audience.
還記得上世紀30年代初德國那些魏瑪(Weimar)式的政客嗎？他們當中沒有一個能吸引住聽衆。
