通常情况下，当唐纳德·特朗普谈到高油价时，总统会告诉公众，与伊朗的艰难战争值得承受更高的消费者成本，而他预计这些成本将在冲突最终结束时下降。
Ordinarily, when Donald Trump talks about high gas prices, the president tells the public that the struggling war with Iran is worth the higher consumers costs, which he expects to fall once the conflict comes to an eventual end.
但偶尔，这位共和党人会尝试不同的策略。他不是主张高油价是其在中东可避免战争的不幸但必要的副产品，特朗普有时会试图说服美国人，高油价是一件好事。
But every once in a while, the Republican tries a different tack. Instead of arguing that higher prices are an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of his avoidable war in the Middle East, Trump occasionally tries to convince Americans that higher gas prices are a thing.
就在发动战争两周后，总统在他的社交媒体平台上发表论点：“美国是世界上产油量最大的国家，远超其他国家，因此当油价上涨时，我们会赚很多钱。”这一说法被证明缺乏说服力，并很快被白宫的谈话要点删除——因此，看到特朗普在七个月后再次使用这一说法，更显令人惊讶，当时是在亚利桑那州周三下午的一次集会上。
Just two weeks after launching the war, the president used his social media platform to argue, “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”That talking proved wildly unpersuasive and was quickly dropped from the White House’s talking points — which made it all the more surprising to see Trump recycle it seven months later, during a Wednesday afternoon rally in Arizona.
“由于油价如此之高，我们的国家赚到的钱比以往任何时候都多，”他说。“因为油价，德克萨斯州、俄克拉荷马州、北达科他州以及所有这些地方，我们正在赚取一笔财富。”换句话说，距离中期选举仅剩20天，全国各州的提前投票窗口正在开启，这位共和党总统希望美国消费者意识到他们正在为更高的油价买单。
“Our country is making more money than it’s ever made because of the fact that oil is so high,” he said. “Because of the price of oil, Texas and Oklahoma and North Dakota and all these places, we’re making a fortune.”In other words, with 20 days remaining before the midterm elections, and with the early-voting window opening in states across the country, the Republican president wants Americans consumers to be they’re paying more at the pump.
从实质上看，特朗普声称“我们正在赚取一笔财富”的问题在于，句子中的“我们”起到了很大的作用。诚然，美国确实在生产大量石油，而且高油价确实有助于石油行业利润的增长。但由于受益于石油行业利润的美国人数量非常少，很少有人可能会庆持续的钱包负担增加。
As a substantive matter, the problem with Trump’s claim that “we’re making a fortune” is that the word “we” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It’s true that the United States is producing a lot of oil, and it’s also true that higher prices help generate oil industry profits. But since the number of Americans who benefit from oil industry profits is very small, few will likely celebrate the ongoing hit to their wallets.
但作为一件政治事件，哪位战略天才想出了这个主意？有多少选民能够合理地认为，汽油平均价格从一年前的每加仑3.06美元涨至现在的每加仑4.33美元是件好事？
But as a political matter, what strategic genius came up this idea? How many voters can reasonably expect to see it as a positive that the average price of gas is $4.33 a gallon, up from $3.06 a year ago at this time?