不堪設想的唐納德特朗普總統
There is nothing surprising about Donald Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin.
唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)敬佩弗拉基米爾•普京(Vladimir Putin)，這沒有什麼讓人驚奇的。
The would-be US president and the Russian leader share an authoritarian bent.
這位美國總統候選人和俄羅斯領導人都有一種威權傾向。
They disdain multilateral engagement in favour of the raw politics of power.
他們蔑視多邊接觸，喜歡原始的強權政治。
Above all, they are transactional.
最重要的是，他們都是交易型的人。
Deals are to be shaped by narrow definitions of national interest, unconstrained by international rules or shared values.
協議將受到狹隘定義的國家利益的影響，不受國際規則或公認價值觀的制約。
Mr Putin wants to erase the humiliation of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
普京想抹掉蘇聯垮臺帶來的屈辱感。
Mr Trump promises to make America great again.
特朗普承諾讓美國再次偉大。
The reason for the Russian leader’s bad personal relationship with Barack Obama is the US president’s wounding refusal to indulge the fantasy of superpower parity.
俄羅斯領導人跟巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)的個人關係很差，因爲美國總統拒絕讓普京陶醉於兩個超級大國平起平坐的幻想，令他受傷。
Perhaps Mr Trump has the better understanding of Russian psychology.
或許特朗普更懂得俄羅斯人的心理。
He never ceases to praise Mr Putin as a strong and decisive leader.
他一直稱讚普京是一個堅強果斷的領導人。
The Republican party’s contender for the White House is not alone in cosying up to the Kremlin.
向克里姆林宮示好的，並不只有這位美國總統候選人。
Populists across Europe — Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France, Nigel Farage’s UK Independence party and the fascist Jobbik and Golden Dawn in Hungary and Greece respectively — have all tipped their hats to Moscow.
整個歐洲的民粹主義者——馬琳•勒龐(Marine Le Pen)所屬的法國國民陣線(National Front)、奈傑爾•法拉奇(Nigel Farage)所屬的英國獨立黨(UKIP)、匈牙利的法西斯主義尤比克黨(Jobbik)和希臘的金色黎明黨(Golden Dawn)——都向莫斯科方面表達過敬意。
Mr Putin also has sympathisers on the left.
普京在左翼陣營也有支持者。
Britain’s Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is more comfortable denouncing US imperialism than challenging Russian revanchism.
英國工黨(Labour)領袖傑里米•科爾賓(Jeremy Corbyn)更願意譴責美國的帝國主義，而不願挑戰俄羅斯的復仇主義。
Until recently the foreign policy establishment was quietly preparing for a Hillary Clinton presidency.
直到不久以前，外交政策領域的體制內人士一直在悄悄地爲希拉里•克林頓(Hillary Clinton)當選總統做準備。
Mr Trump’s candidacy was a nightmare it would surely wake up from on November 9.
特朗普成爲候選人是一場噩夢，這場夢註定會在11月9日醒來。
The mood has changed.
情緒已發生了變化。
As the polls have tightened, Republicans and Democrats have begun to imagine Mr Trump as commander-in-chief.
隨着民調支持率差距的拉近，共和黨人和民主黨人都開始想象特朗普成爲總司令的情形。
A dark quip among US generals — that they would remove the circuit boards before handing over the so-called nuclear football — no longer seems quite so amusing.
美國將軍們當中的一個黑色俏皮話——他們在移交所謂核足球（美國總統授權發動核攻擊所用的手提箱——譯者注）之前會把電路板取下來——不再顯得特別好笑了。
The fears are that the shy Trump supporters may not be showing up in the polls, that antipathy to Mrs Clinton could see centrists stay at home, and that the resolve of white working-class voters to punish the elites could overwhelm Mr Obama’s winning coalition of educated whites, Hispanics and African Americans.
人們擔心，害羞的特朗普支持者或許沒有反映在民調數字中，對希拉里的厭惡可能讓一些持中間立場者呆在家裏，白人工人階級選民懲罰精英的決心會壓倒當年幫助奧巴馬取勝的受過教育的白人、西語裔和非洲裔美國人的聯盟。
Faced with compelling evidence of Mr Trump’s mendacity, misogyny and racism, too many people reply that he doesn’t really mean all that stuff.
面對特朗普表現出的撒謊、厭女症和種族主義的確鑿證據，太多人的回答是，他並不真是那個意思。
The organising fact for the rest of the world is that the US is the only nation that matters just about everywhere.
在世界其他地區看來，基本事實是美國是唯一在世界各地都具有重要性的國家。
It is no longer the hyperpuissance of the 1990s and has lost the appetite to remake the world, but the capacity of a thin-skinned, shoot-from-the-hip president to wreak havoc is chilling.
美國不再是1990年代那個超級強國，也失去了重塑世界的意願，但如果一位易怒、做事魯莽的總統上臺，那麼其造成破壞的能力是令人恐懼的。
A lot of people in Washington are trying to persuade themselves that the checks and balances in the system would restrain him.
在華盛頓，很多人在努力勸服自己，美國體制中的制衡機制將對他構成約束。
Judging from my conversations this week, they are not succeeding in the task.
從我最近的談話判斷，他們在這項任務上沒有成功。
The obvious fear is that a temperamentally unstable president Trump would lash out in a crisis.
人們顯然擔憂的是，氣質上不穩定的特朗普總統在危機期間將會失控。
Robert Gates, the Republican former US defence secretary, says simply that he is unfit to be commander-in-chief.
共和黨人、前國防部長羅伯特•蓋茨(Robert Gates)簡要地說，他不適合擔任總司令。
Mr Trump’s reaction to the latest bomb outrage in New York fitted the pattern.
特朗普對不久前紐約發生的爆炸事件的反應符合這個模式。
The US had to knock the hell out of them … do something serious over there — them being indeterminate and over there being the Middle East.
美國必須痛打他們……在那裏認真地做些事——他們不知道指誰，在那裏指的是中東。
The bigger danger lies in Mr Trump’s promise to withdraw — to tear up trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, throw up trade barriers against China, repudiate the Paris climate change agreement and the nuclear deal with Iran, and abdicate responsibility for the security of east Asia and Europe.
更大的危險在於特朗普做出的撤退承諾——撕毀北美自貿協定(NAFTA)等協議、建立針對中國的貿易壁壘，拒絕批准巴黎氣候變化協議和與伊朗達成的核協議，放棄保衛東亞與歐洲安全的責任。
Mr Trump’s policies are shot through with contradictions but one constant drumbeat is his belligerent isolationism.
特朗普的政策相互矛盾，但一個不變的主題是他好戰的孤立主義。
America will go it alone.
美國將會單幹。
Hyper-realism, some call it.
有些人稱之爲超現實主義。
Dangerous is a better word.
一個更確切的詞是危險。
The present global order — the liberal, rules-based system established in 1945 and expanded after the end of the cold war — is under unprecedented strain.
當前全球秩序——1945年建立並在冷戰結束後擴大的自由主義的、以規則爲基礎的制度——正在承受前所未有的壓力。
Globalisation is in retreat.
全球化正在後退。
At a conference in New York organised by the US branch of the Ditchley Foundation I heard a distinguished American elder statesman remark that he has never known a period when the world had been simultaneously buffeted by so many upheavals and crises.
在紐約一場由迪奇雷基金會(Ditchley Foundation)美國分會組織的會議上，我聽到美國一位傑出的老年政治家表示，他從不知道有哪段時期，世界同時受到這麼多鉅變和危機的衝擊。
The list is a familiar one.
這是一份大家熟悉的清單。
Mr Putin is trying to redraw borders in Europe, the Middle East is in flames, European unity is fracturing, jihadi terrorism is spreading, pluralism is challenged by authoritarianism, China is contesting the status quo in the South China Sea and its neighbours are rearming in response, populists are storming the citadels across advanced democracies.
普京正試圖重畫歐洲國家的邊界，中東燃起戰火，聖戰恐怖主義行動在蔓延，多元主義遭到威權主義的挑戰，中國正試圖改變南中國海(South China Sea)的現狀，促使鄰國開始重新武裝自己，民粹主義者們在各個發達民主國家衝擊要塞。
To Mr Trump, the answer is American retreat.
對特朗普而言，答案就是美國撤退。
He wants to build walls.
他想建造高牆。
He questions the US security umbrella in the Pacific — maybe Japan and South Korea should get their own nuclear weapons? He undercuts the credibility of Nato’s defence of Europe — the US might stand by if Russian troops marched into the Baltic states.
他質疑美國在太平洋的安全保護傘——或許日本和韓國應當發展自己的核武器？他削弱了北約(Nato)保衛歐洲的可信度——如果俄羅斯軍隊長驅直入波羅的海國家，美國或許會袖手旁觀。
There is no sense in any of this that American national security is safeguarded by alliances and international order.
美國國家安全靠聯盟和國際秩序來保障的理念，對特朗普來說毫無意義。
If the polls are to be believed, Mr Trump has wrested momentum from Mrs Clinton in the presidential race.
如果民調結果可以相信，那麼特朗普在總統競選中已奪走了希拉里的勢頭。
This does not mean he will win on November 8.
這並不意味着他將在11月8日獲勝。
The structure of the electoral college gives him only a narrow path to the White House.
選舉人團的構成，只給他留了一條通往白宮的窄路。
And there are three debates ahead.
前面還有幾場辯論。
But the unthinkable has become the plausible.
但是，不堪設想的事情已變得看似可信。
We should be more than worried.
我們應當感到異常擔憂。
Neither America nor the world can afford a lurch into Trumpian isolationism.
無論是美國還是世界，都承擔不起陷入特朗普式孤立主義的後果。
