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The reality on the southern U.S. border was so difficult to reconcile with Americans’ vision of themselves
美国南部边境的现实，美国民众对未来的期许，二者之间已经难以调和，
that Trump did not even make the effort.
特朗普便干脆听之任之，不做任何补救。
The President’s first mention of the order to separate children from their parents
总统在5月26日的推文中首次下达了将孩子与父母分开的命令，
was a May 26 Twitter post calling it “horrible” even though he had personally authorized it.
他在推文中称这种做法“令人震惊”，尽管下达这一命令的就是他本人。
Three weeks later, his motives were fully in the open:
三个星期后，他的动机彻底被公开了：
by driving attention to the border, his signature campaign issue,
通过将人们的注意力转移到他在竞选时着重讨论的边境问题上，
Trump aimed to force a vote on his long-promised border wall before midterm elections can undo the GOP majority in Congress.
特朗普企图在中期选举打破共和党在国会的多数党地位之前，迫使民众就他很久以前就已经承诺修建的边境墙提案进行投票。
The attention part certainly worked.
转移注意力这招显然已经奏效。
A week after his return from the June 12 summit with North Korea’s dictator,
在他从6月12日与朝鲜独裁者的峰会归国的一周后，
family separation dominated the national conversation like no other political story since former FBI chief James Comey was shown the door.
拆散移民家庭的问题就已经主宰了全国上下的讨论，其热烈程度，前联邦调查局局长詹姆斯·科米被扫地出门后还没有任何政治话题能够与其并肩。
A steadily building wave of revulsion washed over the political spectrum,
第一夫人的女发言人说，第一夫人呼吁“用心治理国家”后，
from MSNBC to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal to Franklin Graham and into the White House living quarters,
从微软全国广播公司到《华尔街日报》社论版，到富兰克林·格雷厄姆牧师再到到白宫生活区，
when a spokeswoman for the First Lady said she called for “a country that governs with heart.”
一股不断壮大的反感浪潮席卷了整个政坛。
Which leaves us facing a question: What kind of country are we?
一个问题出现在了我们面前：我们是一个怎样的国家？
The world has been nervously asking that since November 2016.
自2016年11月以来，世界一直在紧张地问这个问题。
And while Trump ultimately capitulated on the forced separation of children,
尽管特朗普最终在强制分离儿童的问题上做出了让步，
his new order suggested that families would be detained not only together, but perhaps indefinitely.
他还是颁布了新命令，表明那些家庭不仅会一起被拘留，还可能无限期被拘留。
For many Americans, the forced separation of immigrant families left them looking into the void from which the brutal policy emerged:
移民家庭被迫分离一事也让许多美国人看到了这一残酷政策背后的那片空白：
the dark space left by the words Trump does say.
特朗普亲口说出的话所留下的那片黑暗。
IN THE FIRST DAYS of the Trump Administration,
特朗普上任的头几天，
the State Department moved to drop two words—just and democratic—from the list of qualities the U.S. sought to promote beyond its borders.
国务院便已经决定将“公正”和“民主”两个词从美国试图超越国土而推广的品质清单中除名。
The change did not go through, but the effort signaled a retreat from idealism that is re-ordering the world.
尽管没有完全落实，这一举措依然标志着放弃重塑世界秩序这一理想。
In the name of “America first,” a slogan that first surfaced to keep America out of World War II,
当时，美国不仅是全球唯一完好无损的经济强国，还占据了道德制高点，
Trump is angrily sawing away at the global structures the U.S. spent decades building after prevailing in that conflict,
从那场战争中渔翁得利之后，美国花了数十年时间构建全球秩序，
which left America not only as the globe’s only intact major economic power, but also holding the moral high ground.
特朗普却打着“美国优先”——这一口号原本是为了让美国置身于二战之外——的名义愤怒地砍断了这一秩序。
Imperfect in myriad ways (lynching was still common in 1945; women had been allowed to vote for just a quarter-century),
尽管在很多方面依然不完美(1945年时，私刑在美国依然很普遍；女性获得投票权的时间也才刚过去1/4个世纪），
the U.S. looked plenty good beside the Third Reich and Imperial Japan, and vowed to do better.
除去第三帝国以及日本帝国，那时的美国也算不错，还发誓要变得更好。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
