当联邦移民特工于周一上午突袭伊尔汉·奥马尔（民主党-明尼苏达州）众议员的住宅时，右翼媒体福克斯新闻几乎实时披露了此事。尽管大多数联邦突袭行动都在严格保密中进行，但福克斯新闻的报道引用了多名国土安全部消息人士，这些人士似乎急于透露有损奥马尔形象的敏感细节。
When federal immigration agents raided Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) home on Monday morning, right-wing media outlet Fox News broke the story almost as it happened. Despite most federal raids unfolding in tight secrecy, Fox’s reporting cited multiple sources at the Department of Homeland Security who seemed eager to spill sensitive details that cast Omar in a negative light.
索马里出生的奥马尔自特朗普政治生涯伊始以来一直是其最坚定、最直言不讳的对手之一，这一点无人不知。特朗普则乐此不疲地回击她：去年他曾敦促奥马尔离开美国。而在今年二月，他针对奥马尔在国情咨文演讲中的喧哗行为，要求将她连同拉希达·特莱布（民主党-密歇根州）众议员一起驱逐出境。
It is no secret that the Somali-born Omar has been one of President Trump’s most consistent and vocal foes since the earliest days of his political career. Trump has returned her attacks with relish: last year he urged Omar to leave the country. And in February, he responded to Omar’s heckling at the State of the Union by demanding she be deported along with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
“别搞错：这是针对政治敌人的行动，旨在将联邦执法武器化。”奥马尔在突袭发生后数小时在X平台上发文称。“十年来，特朗普一直以毫无根据的谎言和抹黑运动针对我。这不过是他在政治恐吓运动中的最新升级。”特朗普并不陌生于言语战争。即便如此，要把ICE对奥马尔私人住宅的突袭视为其他任何事情，都很困难——这显然是特朗普利用政府权力报复其无数民主党对手的明显升级。
“Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,” Omar posted on X in the hours following the raid. “For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.”Trump is no stranger to verbal warfare. Even so, it’s hard to see an ICE raid on Omar’s private residence as anything other than a stark escalation in Trump’s use of government power to retaliate against his countless Democratic enemies.
在这种规模上滥用政府资源应当促成两党调查并引发一波辞职潮。但在这个道德败坏的共和党内，这很可能会赢得一些特朗普的马屁精获得自由勋章。
The misuse of government resources on this scale should prompt bipartisan investigations and a wave of resignations. But in this morally rotten Republican Party, it will probably win some Trump toady the Medal of Freedom.
如果特朗普的目标是沉默奥马尔，他根本误解了奥马尔以及威权主义的局限。在特朗普急于沉默任何敢于谈及其滥用权力的民主党人的竞赛中，他仅仅成功地削弱了法治，并暴露了共和党是一个由愿意为了自身短期政治利益而撕裂我们自由的小人物组成的政党。
If Trump’s goal is to silence Omar, he fundamentally misunderstands both Omar and the limits of authoritarianism. In his race to silence any and all Democrats who dare to speak out about his abuses of power, Trump has succeeded only in weakening the rule of law and exposing Republicans as a party of small people willing to shred our liberties for their own short-term political gain.
这次突袭的理由荒唐可笑，但正如特朗普对纽约州总检察长莱蒂西亚·詹姆斯（民主党）和前联邦调查局局长詹姆斯·科米的失败起诉所表明的那样，连贯的法律论点只是次要考量。特朗普的论据似乎仅仅围绕着奥马尔父亲在她还是个孩子时填写的移民文件 — — 即便是特朗普的盟友也无法解释，为何奥马尔当时才12岁，却要为父亲签署的文件承担法律责任。
The justification behind the raid is nonsensical, but as Trump’s failed prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and former FBI director James Comey have shown, coherent legal arguments are only of secondary concern. Trump’s paper-thin reasoning seems to center on immigration paperwork filled out by Omar’s father when she was just a child — though even Trump’s allies can’t explain why Omar, who would have been 12 years old at the time, would bear legal liability for documents signed by her father.
另一个争议点是右翼论坛上持续流传的谣言，称奥马尔通过与兄弟结婚犯下了婚姻和移民欺诈。南卡罗来纳州共和党众议员南希·梅斯甚至在今年早些时候威胁要因这一谣言传唤奥马尔，而这一谣言自2019年起就一直是特朗普的最爱。共和党媒体影响者们对奥马尔的婚姻状况制造了不少争议，但他们反复未能拿出证据。
Also at issue is the persistent rumor, popular on right-wing message boards, that Omar committed marriage and immigration fraud by marrying her brother. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) even threatened to subpoena Omar earlier this year over the rumor, which has been a favorite of Trump’s since at least 2019. Republican media influencers have ginned up plenty of controversy about Omar’s marital status, but they have repeatedly come up short on evidence.
但特朗普政治网络针对奥马尔编造的丑闻与本质无关。特朗普厌恶奥马尔并非因为她父亲可能在1995年的文件上陈述了不实事实，而是因为她，就像科米和詹姆斯一样，是他政策失败和赤裸裸犯罪行为的直言不讳的批评者。作为独裁者的忠粉，特朗普知道，沉默某些批评者的唯一方法就是用武器化的政府权力将他们压垮。
But the scandals cooked up against Omar by Trump’s political network are beside the point. Trump doesn’t hate Omar because her father possibly misstated facts on a document from 1995. He hates her because she, like Comey and James, is a vocal critic of his policy failures and his brazen criminality. Ever the fanboy for dictators, Trump knows that the only way to silence some critics is by crushing them under the fist of weaponized government power.
如果特朗普过去一年半里没有养成这种习惯，他这次试图封杀一位知名批评者的行动或许还能掩盖过去。事实上，特朗普对权力的无能滥用可能正是他第二个任期的显著特征。
Trump’s latest attempt to shut up a prominent critic would be easier to hide if he hadn’t made such a habit of it over the past year and a half. In fact, Trump’s inept misuse of power might be the defining characteristic of his second term.
他试图起诉美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔的行动搞砸了，并且在试图谴责参议员马克·凯利（民主党-亚利桑那州）、指控参议员亚当·希夫（民主党-加利福尼亚州）犯有抵押贷款欺诈罪以及起诉参议员埃莉莎·斯洛特金（民主党-密歇根州）煽动士兵抵抗非法命令的尝试中均告失败。在奥马尔之前，特朗普一直忙于对加州州长加文·纽森（民主党）进行一项几乎肯定会失败的联邦调查。当然，还要把科米和詹姆斯也加入名单。
He botched his effort to prosecute Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell and fell short in his attempt to censure Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), charge Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) with mortgage fraud, and prosecute Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) for urging soldiers to resist illegal orders. Before Omar, Trump busied himself with an almost certainly doomed federal investigation into California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). And of course, add Comey and James to the list.
特朗普的努力几乎不可避免地以失败告终，这并不能成为共和党人不就他习惯性滥用政府资源骚扰政治对手的行为发声的借口。曾经如此高声抱怨民主党“法律战”的那个党派，如今在特朗普滥用国土安全部资源，试图非法驱逐一名依法在此国获得庇押的在任国会议员时，却保持着被动的沉默。这正是苏联噩梦的内容，而非美国的伟大。
That Trump’s efforts almost inevitably fail doesn’t excuse Republicans from speaking up about his habitual abuse of government resources to harass his political rivals. The party that once so loudly complained about Democratic “lawfare” is now passively mute as Trump misuses Homeland Security resources in an attempt to unlawfully deport a sitting member of Congress who legally received asylum in this country. That’s the stuff of Soviet nightmares, not American greatness.
马克斯·伯恩斯是一位资深民主党策略家，也是第三度策略公司的创始人。
Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.