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Whoever takes the oath of office on Jan. 20 will be tested by a historic set of challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has just entered its worst phase yet, rampaging across the country virtually unchecked. The economic fallout from the virus continues to worsen without new federal aid. Trump has given few hints of what his next months in office may hold, but few expect them to be smooth. An urgent set of policy problems, from climate change to health care to the nation's crumbling infrastructure, may run into the wall of divided government. America's democratic institutions will continue to teeter. "If in fact Biden wins, it's still the case that an openly bigoted aspiring authoritarian not only won the presidency but captured the complete loyalty of one of two major political parties, and—but for a once-in-a-century pandemic—he might have been re-elected," says Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan legal group. "If that doesn't tell you that something is completely rotten in the foundations of our democracy, I don't know what would."
不管是谁在明年1月20日宣誓就职，他都将面临一系列历史性挑战。新冠才刚进入最糟糕的阶段，正任意肆虐着整个美国。在没有新的联邦援助的情况下，新冠对经济的影响将持续恶化。特朗普并未对他下个月的任期给出太多提示，但预计不会太顺利。从气候变化到医疗保健再到国家破旧的基础设施等一系列紧迫的政策问题可能会撞到分裂的政府的墙上，美国的民主制度将继续摇摇欲坠。无党派法律组织“保护民主”的联合创始人伊恩·巴辛说：“如果拜登真的赢了，那么意味着一个公开偏执的有抱负的独裁主义者不仅赢得了总统职位，还赢得了民主党的绝对忠诚，并且对于百年一遇的大瘟疫来说，今后他有可能再次当选。没有什么能比此更能说明我们民主的基础已经彻底腐烂了。”
The story of American politics in the 21st century has been one of escalating polarization and gridlock, a nihilistic feedback loop that has made the country all but impossible to lead. For years, a chaos-ridden nation has waited to deliver its verdict on Trump's unorthodox presidency. But this is 2020—the year when up was down and real was fake, the year of the plague, the year of the unexpected: of course it would not be that easy. Both sides hoped for a knockout blow, a landslide that would forever settle the question of which version of America is the true one. Instead, our identity crisis continues.
21世纪的美国政治故事充斥着两极分化和不断升级的僵局，虚无主义的反馈环路让这个国家变得很难领导。多年来，这个混乱不堪的国家一直在等待对特朗普异端的管理做出裁决。但是今年是2020年，这一年混乱不堪、真假难辨，这一年是瘟疫之年、意外丛生之年。这一年当然不会简单渡过。双方都希望能有一场压倒性的胜利，从而永远解决“哪个版本的美国才是真正的美国”这个问题。但是相反，我们的身份危机仍在继续。
The campaign unfolded over a year so convulsive that the third presidential impeachment in history now seems a distant memory. COVID-19 upended Americans' lives and drained their bank accounts. Millions of people, from all walks of life, took to the streets to protest police violence. The West Coast's sky was blotted by fire for weeks, while the East was battered by a record hurricane season. And yet, against this backdrop of chaos there was an odd political stasis: Trump's standing in polls remained about where it had been when Biden first entered the race—a sign, Democrats believed, that Trump had little chance of persuading an electorate that had long since rejected him.
这场竞选持续了一年多，如此惊心动魄，以致历史上第三次总统弹劾似乎已经成为遥远的过去。新冠把美国人民的生活搞得乱七八糟，吸干了他们的银行账户；千百万来自各行各业的人们走上街头抗议警察的暴力；西海岸的天空被大火笼罩了数周，而东边则遭受了创记录的飓风季节的袭击。然而，在这种混乱的背景下，却出现了奇怪的政治停滞：特朗普在民调中的支持率与拜登第一次参选时持平——民主党人认为这是一个信号，表明特朗普几乎无法说服那些早已拒绝他的选民。
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