小木猫

 找回密码
 立即注册

扫一扫,访问微社区

搜索
热搜: 活动 交友 discuz
小木猫 门户 查看主题

为什么特朗普被弹劾的可能性令人恐惧

发布者: 天蓝蓝 | 发布时间: 2019-9-27 19:58| 查看数: 2093| 评论数: 1|帖子模式

merlin_161434137_a2843d12-02e9-4a3b-a8af-a38991943666-master1050.jpg
[size=0.875]众议院议长南希·佩洛西宣布将正式启动对特朗普总统的弹劾调查。 JIM LO SCALZO/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK[size=1.125] [《纽约时报》推出每日中文简报,为你介绍时报当日的重点英文报道,并推荐部分已被译成中文的精选内容。新读者请点击此处订阅,或发送邮件至cn.letters@nytimes.com加入订阅。]

[size=1.125]特朗普总统应该被弹劾。但这种可能性使我恐惧,也应该使你恐惧。

[size=1.125]不是说弹劾是错误之举。按理说,这是唯一该做的,至少从对宪法的忠诚、以及基本的行为准则角度而言。从特朗普踏入总统办公室那一刻起,他就一直在侮辱这个重要职务——用一位总统无权用的语言(或无权用的推文);用无休止的谎言;用幼稚且常常精神错乱的行为;用严重的利益冲突;用管理上的无能;用永远无法满足的贪婪自负;以及用有损美国价值观、独立性和利益的国外交易。坚持原则的立法者们怎能不用他们可使用的最强有力的方式告诉他,该适可而止了?

[size=1.125]但在正式启动弹劾调查之际,人们现在绝对无法知道将发生什么。一丁点都不知道。你会在未来几天和几周里听到很多关于比尔·克林顿(Bill Clinton)的话题,但用克林顿1998年底遭弹劾的例子说事儿有点荒唐:他是一位非常不同的总统,他在一个非常不同的年代被指控犯有非常不同的罪名。此外,引用那次弹劾的政治分析人士对弹劾的教训没有一致意见。因此,一名对弹劾特朗普将带来的政治后果自信地做预测的权威,也是一名处于极其危险境地的权威。











[size=1.125]任何情形都有可能,包括弹劾会对特朗普的利益有好处,从而增加他的连任可能,因为他将把自己装扮成受难者,躲避参议院的定罪,把那说成是宣布他无罪,然后看着自己的粉丝们行动起来,出来投他票的人数比以往任何时候都多。第二个特朗普任期也不只会是高尚立场的可悲次优副产品,那还会是一场灾难。无论在道德层面还是实际层面,限制这个不称职、不道德、不稳定之人的总统任期比几个世纪前所写的任何一小串句子都重要。
[size=1.125]但是,虽然弹劾对2020年11月的影响无法知道,弹劾对我们国家造成的影响却几乎可以肯定。一个两极分化到了危险程度、对自己党派的支持到了常常是恶劣的程度的国家会愈演愈烈,处在对立面的人们会对自己阵营的观点更坚持不懈,更执着于自己选择的叙事,而只关心自己的总统将继续加强他的真理本身是主观的、是供人争夺的固执主张。
[size=1.125]这不是要失败的理由,而是要接受的现实。在我们如此迫切地需要重新找到共同点的时刻,我们会进一步扩大对立双方的距离。在此之后将国家团结起来需要的不止是一位天才政治家,还需要能创造奇迹的人。还没有哪一位民主党总统候选人够得上这个水平。
[size=1.125]弹劾应该使你恐惧,因为它将意味着把特朗普的目无法纪、荒唐行为、虚构的故事和愚蠢的推文作为持续的、无休止的、铺天盖地的焦点。他在短期内会赢——全体美国人则会输——因为只要华盛顿的大部分功夫都耗在这个推销手令人作呕的狂欢上,可用来解决国家的真正问题、审查他在解决这些问题上的严重不胜任的时间就少之又少。
[size=1.125]从众议院共和党人对希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)的迫害,到众议院民主党人在特朗普治下没完没了的歇斯底里,华盛顿已比以往任何时候都更严重地退化,成为了一个程序取代进展、哗众取宠胜于治理、噪音盖过任何有意义的信息的地方。参与政治就是参与战斗——这不应当也不必总是如此。
[size=1.125]我们已经——噢——晚实施四分之一世纪的基础设施计划哪去儿了?医疗保健体系问题的解决方案又在哪里?这些问题影响的远不止数千万仍无医保的美国人。教育的问题呢?弹劾会把所有这些问题推到比它们现在已经处在的位置更边缘的地方。





[size=1.125]在民主党初选及随后的大选中,特朗普夸大表演和特朗普奇观会让所有别的东西黯然失色。而许多美国人与华盛顿的隔阂——以及他们对政府是否能改善他们的生活哪怕一丁点的愤世嫉俗态度——会不断加剧。
[size=1.125]由于人们的困惑,这尤其是再真实不过了。如果你对特朗普有好感,并且乐于接受他称自己受迫害的断言,看过罗伯特·穆勒(Robert Mueller)周密且花了很长时间的调查,注意到国会大厦似乎无休止地安排的听证会和明星证人(迈克尔·科恩[Michael Cohen]、穆勒、比尔·巴尔[Bill Barr]、科里·莱万多夫斯基[Corey Lewandowski]),而且你以为众议员司法委员会(House Judiciary Committee)已经在展开弹劾调查。这些最新事态于你就像是波托马克河上的《土拨鼠之日》(Groundhog Day)。
[size=1.125]如果特朗普让你感到深受冒犯,而且把你搞得彻底筋疲力尽,你会把弹劾当作等待已久的正义和你所企盼的获释感而忍不住欢呼雀跃,忘记了这不过是重头戏——参议院的弹劾审理——的前奏。参议院也是由共和党人控制的,从目前的情形看,他们给特朗普定罪的可能性与联名支持伊丽莎白·沃伦(Elizabeth Warren)的财富税法案的可能性不相上下。于是到头来,特朗普的支持者会对他被迫经历在他们看来是已有预料的必然结局的过分做法而愤怒不已,而特朗普批评者的挫败感则会指数式增长。让我们开始愈合创伤吧!
[size=1.125]再者,弹劾程序能有效地揭露——并迫使美国人关注——特朗普那些被忽视的罪恶吗?这长期以来一直是民主党人主张弹劾的一个理由,但我有点怀疑。首先,迄今为止的一些听证会——尤其是莱万多夫斯基的——让人有疑问,这些听证会是否有能力从证人那里挖出想要得到的东西,并从听证会上尖刻的言论中找出确凿的证据。但还不止于此,对特朗普的报道已经太过饱和,以至于许多选民也许不想再看更多的,而且当今的部落政治也不允许有那么多的顿悟和转变。特朗普的本色从一开始就显而易见。你要么看见一道反常的彩虹,要么凝视着黑暗。
[size=1.125]同时还有特朗普本人。漫长的弹劾程序将让他感到多脆弱?多无能为力?多绝望?为显示他的权力、发泄他的愤怒,或者转移人们的注意力,他会怎么做?他不受任何顾虑的牵制。他能干出任何事情。也许他会挑起的不只是一场文化战。也许那会是一场真刀实枪的战争。
[size=1.125]当然,他会尽他所能让美国人相信民主党人的邪恶,而他的策略绝对会是把各种各样的反对他的人、程序和机构诽谤为完全不值得信任。如果抓住权力不放意味着统治一片废墟的话,那就这样吧。特朗普只对特朗普心存感激,他只会简单地把废墟宣称为金粉。





最新评论

点评 回复 天蓝蓝 发表于 2019-9-27 20:01:50
Why a Trump Impeachment Should Terrify You

ImageSpeaker Nancy Pelosi announcing a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump.CreditCreditJim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
This article is adapted from Frank Bruni’s free weekly newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.

President Trump deserves to be impeached. But the prospect terrifies me, and it should terrify you, too.

That’s not to say that it’s the wrong move. Arguably, it’s the only move, at least in terms of fidelity to the Constitution and to basic decency. From the moment that Trump stepped into the office of the presidency, he has degraded it — with words that a president has no business speaking (or tweeting); with ceaseless lies; with infantile and often unhinged behavior; with raging conflicts of interest; with managerial ineptitude; with a rapacious ego that’s never sated; and with foreign dealings that compromise America’s values, independence and interests. How can principled lawmakers not tell him, in the most emphatic manner available, that enough is enough?

But there’s no way to say what happens now that a formal impeachment inquiry is being opened. None. You’re going to hear a lot in coming days and weeks about Bill Clinton, but using the example of his impeachment in late 1998 is a bit ridiculous: He was a very different president accused of very different offenses at a very different time. Besides which, political analysts who do cite it don’t agree on the lessons. So a pundit making confident predictions about the political fallout from the impeachment of Trump is a pundit far out on a slender limb.

Sign Up for Debatable
Agree to disagree, or disagree better? We'll help you understand the sharpest arguments on the most pressing issues of the week, from new and familiar voices.

SIGN UP
ADVERTISEMENT


Any scenario is possible, including one in which impeachment redounds to Trump’s benefit and increases the chances of his re-election, because he paints himself a martyr, eludes conviction in the Senate, frames that as exoneration and watches his fans mobilize and turn out as never before. And a second Trump term wouldn’t just be the sadly suboptimal byproduct of a noble stand; it would be disastrous. Morally as well as practically, limiting this unfit, amoral, unsteady man’s time in the presidency takes precedence over any small cluster of sentences written centuries ago.

But while an impeachment’s impact on November 2020 is unknowable, its effect on us as a nation is almost certain. A dangerously polarized and often viciously partisan country would grow more so, with people on opposing sides hunkering down deeper in their camps and clinging harder to their chosen narratives as the president — concerned only with himself — ratcheted up his insistence that truth itself was subjective and up for grabs.

That’s not a reason to blink, but it’s a reality to brace for. At a juncture when we so desperately need to rediscover common ground, we’d be widening the fault lines. Bringing the country together afterward would call for more than a talented politician; it would demand a miracle worker. None of the Democratic presidential candidates qualify.

Impeachment should terrify you because it would mean a continued, relentless, overwhelming focus on Trump’s lawlessness, antics, fictions and inane tweets. He would win in the short term — and all Americans would lose — because as long as most of the oxygen in Washington is consumed by the ghastly carnival of this barker, there’s too little left for the nation’s very real problems and for scrutiny of his substantive inadequacy in addressing them.

From the House Republicans’ persecution of Hillary Clinton through the permanent hysteria of House Democrats under Trump, Washington has devolved ever further into a place where process muscles out progress, grandstanding eclipses governing and noise muffles any meaningful signal. To be engaged in politics is to be engaged in battle — and that shouldn’t and needn’t always be so.

Editors’ Picks

What I Learned in a Year of Weeknight Cooking

Follow Us to the Ends of the Earth

A Guided Tour Through the Ruins of America's Democracy

ADVERTISEMENT


Where’s the infrastructure plan that we’re — oh — a quarter-century late in implementing? Where are the fixes to a health care system whose problems go far beyond the tens of millions of Americans still uninsured? What about education? Impeachment would shove all of those issues even further to the margins than they already are.

During the Democratic primary and then the general election, the Trump melodrama and the Trump spectacle would overshadow all else. And many Americans’ estrangement from Washington — their cynicism about its ability to improve their lives even a whit — would intensify.

That could be all the more true on account of their confusion. If you’re favorably disposed toward Trump and receptive to his claims of persecution, you’ve watched the meticulous and drawn-out work of Robert Mueller, you’ve noticed a seemingly nonstop schedule of Capitol Hill hearings and of star witnesses (Michael Cohen, Mueller, Bill Barr, Corey Lewandowski), and you thought that the House Judiciary Committee was already doing an impeachment inquiry. The latest developments strike you as “Groundhog Day” on the Potomac.

If you’re horribly offended and utterly exhausted by Trump, you’re tempted to cheer impeachment as long-sought justice and prayed-for release and forget that it’s just the prelude to the main act, which is a trial in the Senate. That chamber is controlled by Republicans, who, based on current conditions, are as likely to convict Trump as they are to co-sponsor Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax. So Trump’s supporters would wind up furious that he was put through what they regarded as an overwrought exercise with a foregone conclusion, while the frustration of Trump’s detractors would be exponentially multiplied. Let the healing begin!

And would impeachment proceedings effectively lay bare — and force Americans to focus on — sins of Trump’s that are being ignored? That’s long been one of Democrats’ arguments for impeachment, but I wonder. For starters, some of the hearings to date — Lewandowski’s in particular — raise questions about their ability to pry loose what they want from witnesses and isolate the damning evidence amid the ambient vitriol. But more than that, there has been such saturation coverage of Trump that many voters may not be able to stomach it any more, and today’s political tribalism doesn’t allow for all that much in the way of epiphanies and transformations. Trump’s true colors were conspicuous from the start. You either saw a perverse rainbow or you stared into darkness.

Meanwhile, Trump. How vulnerable will drawn-out impeachment proceedings make him feel? How impotent? How desperate? To flex his power, vent his fury or distract the audience, what would he do? He’s untethered by scruple. He’s capable of anything. Maybe it’s not just a culture war that he’d whip up. Maybe it’s the real thing.

Certainly he’d do all he could to persuade Americans of the nefariousness of Democrats, and absolutely his strategy would be to smear the people, the procedures and the institutions arrayed against him as utterly unworthy of trust. If holding on to power meant ruling over rubble, so be it. Trump is beholden only to Trump, and he’d simply declare the rubble gold dust.
您需要登录后才可以回帖 登录 | 立即注册

本版积分规则

快速回复 返回顶部 返回列表