According to the book, ordinary Americans, too, are ill-equipped to grapple with the president’s brazenness. Ever since Watergate, they have been primed to sniff out political conspiracy. But Mr Trump lacks the attention span and managerial skills to run a conspiracy. Faced with pressure to reveal who received $500bn in taxpayerfunded emergency loans, his administration did not manufacture a false paper trail. His treasury secretary simply refused to say. It wasn’t muckraking journalists who informed the public that Mr Trump had sacked James Comey, a former director of the FBI, because of its probes into his campaign’s links with Russia.As Gessen relates, the president said so on television.
根据这本书中描述的，普通的美国人也没有足够的能力来对付总统的厚颜无耻。自从水门事件发生以来，他们就做好去找出政治阴谋的准备。但是特朗普缺少策划阴谋所需要的足够的注意力以及管理能力。面对着披露谁获得了纳税人资助的5000亿美元紧急贷款的压力，特朗普政府并没有伪造文件。他的财务部长只是拒绝透漏。并不是那些揭露丑闻的记者告知民众，特朗普解雇了前联邦调查局局长詹姆斯·科米，因为联邦调查局就特朗普竞选团队与俄罗斯之间的关系展开了调查。正如格森讲述的这样，总统在电视上是这样说的。
Borrowing a phrase from Balint Magyar, a Hungarian writer and politician, Gessen now characterises Mr Trump’s overall project as “an autocratic attempt”, rather than the thing itself; he is said to be testing America’s defences and laying the groundwork for further power grabs.The country can still fend off this bid—notably by voting him out of office. But more will be required, Gessen urges, to repair the damage and see off the danger. Ideals have receded from politics in favour of an uninspiring technocracy; America will have to reinvent, or at least rediscover, its “moral aspiration”, in particular “the belief that this can be a country of all its people”.
借用匈牙利作家和政治家巴林特·马亚尔的一句话，格森现在将特朗普的整个计划描述为“一种独裁企图”，而不针对这件事本身；据说，他正在测试美国的防御能力，并为进一步的权力争夺打下基础。美国仍然可以通过投票让特朗普下台来抵御这种企图。但是，格森敦促说，还需要更多的努力来修复伤害和消除危险。理想已经从政治中退去，美国现在转而支持一个过时的技术官僚政治；美国将不得不重新创造，或者至少重新发现它的“道德抱负”，特别是“相信美国可以成为一个全民共享的国家”。
Bracing as it is, though, this book underplays the robustness of some of the institutions it frets over. The Supreme Court, for instance, has recently issued a string of rulings that enraged the president; though Republican senators preserved him in office, occasionally even some of them have disappointed him. And it misses the extent to which the fightback Gessen craves is already happening. Mr Trump has led Republicans towards nativism, but also to three years of electoral defeats—including the loss of the House of Representatives. Should Democrats win the presidency and both chambers of Congress in November, he may inspire a raft of ethics legislation.
尽管这本书令人振奋，但它低估了它所担心的一些机构的稳健性。例如，最高法院最近发布了一系列裁决，这激怒了总统；尽管共和党参议员保住了他的职位，但有时甚至有些人会让他失望。这本书也忽略了格森渴望的反击已经发生的程度。特朗普带领共和党人走向本土主义，但也导致了三年的选举失败，包括失去众议院的控制权。如果民主党在11月赢得总统选举和国会两院选举，他可能会产生一系列伦理立法。
Mr Trump may be a sign of decadence in American democracy, as Gessen implies. He could also prove its renewer.
正如格森暗示的那样，特朗普可能是美国民主颓废的标志。他还可以证明自己会使民主重获新生。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
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