唐纳德·特朗普象征着“金钱势力”。有些日子感觉我们都生活在一部以镀金时代为背景的小说里，那时仅仅富有的人变得极其富有，而其他人都在挣扎。
Donald Trump symbolizes "the money power." Some days feel like we're all living in the pages of a novel set in the Gilded Age, a time when the merely rich transformed into the very obscenely rich while everyone else struggled.
昨日，《华盛顿太阳报》报道称，总统在西翼安装了四盏金色吊灯，以庆祝他六月的生日。白宫取消了正常程序。一家小公司获得了一份5万美元的非招标合同，以快速完成这项工作。
Yesterday, the Washington Sun reported that the president had four golden chandeliers installed in the West Wing in celebration of his June birthday. The White House scrapped normal procedure. A small firm was given a $50,000 no-bid contract to get the job done fast.
同一天，《纽约时报》报道称，近一半的国家民众难以维持生计，在低收入美国人中，这一比例接近75%。
On the same day, the Times reported that nearly half the country is having trouble making ends meet, with that number approaching 75 percent among low-income Americans.
《纽约时报》援引皮尤研究中心的一项新调查报道称：“近四分之三的人表示，过去一年他们在支付食品、住房、医疗或日常交通费用方面遇到了困难，而高收入成年人中这一比例为13%。”该报还称：“收入谱系低端的约一半人表示，每月无法支付部分账单，77%的人表示没有足够的钱来应对紧急情况下三个月的开支。”
"Nearly three-quarters said they struggled to pay for food, housing, medical care or daily transportation in the past year compared with 13 percent of upper-income adults," the Times said of a new survey by the Pew Research Center. "About half of those on the lower end of the income spectrum said they could not pay some of their bills each month, and 77 percent said they did not have enough money to cover expenses for three months in an emergency."
如此之多人挣扎求生，是唐纳德·特朗普选择的后果。非法战争、非法税收（关税）和非法驱逐的三重打击正以滞胀（收入停滞加上通胀）的形式烧毁经济。《纽约时报》称，时薪已回到特朗普重返权力前的水平。九月份，物价涨至五个月来的最高点，比去年同期上涨了3.7%。
That so many people are scrambling is a consequence of Donald Trump's choices. The triple whammy of illegal war, illegal taxes (tariffs) and illegal deportations are burning up the economy in the form of stagflation (stagnant incomes plus inflation). Hourly wages are back to where they were before Trump returned to power, the Times said. In September, prices rose to their highest in five months. They were 3.7 percent higher than this time last year.
但上述对比并未体现问题的系统性——腐败和恶行并非特朗普一人所为。为此，《华盛顿邮报》今天的报道揭示了这一点。报道指出，一些个人和公司向他的基金捐赠了3.3亿美元，用于在白宫东翼原址建造一个舞厅。所有捐赠者似乎都获得了回报：有利的监管、政府合同，甚至特赦。
But the above contrast doesn't capture how systemic the problem is – that the corruption and villainy are not Trump's alone. For that, we have reporting today by the Post. It revealed the individuals and companies that made $330 million in "donations" to his fund to build a ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to be. All of them appear to have gotten something in return: favorable regulation, government contracts, even pardons.
镀金时代不仅是财富爆炸式增长的时代。（从未有人见过如此多的钱如此快速地通过工业化积累。）它也是我们如今所说的白领犯罪的爆发。改革者使用“强盗 baron”一词并非偶然——它精准地描述了仅仅富有的人如何通过企业垄断、腐败和劳动力剥削，变得极其 obscenely 富有。自然，人们对针对他们的罪行越了解，对“金钱权力”的愤怒就越大。如今有充分理由对金钱权力感到愤怒。
The Gilded Age was not only an era of explosive wealth. (No one had seen so much money made so quickly from industrialization.) It was also an explosion of what we would these days call white-collar crime. There's a reason reformers used the phrase "robber barons." It captured how the merely rich became very obscenely rich through a combination of corporate concentration, corruption and workforce exploitation. Naturally, the more people were aware of the crimes against them, the angrier they were with "the money power." There's plenty of reason to be mad at the money power now.
特朗普本人并未出现在向其舞厅捐款的名单中。去年，在对东翼（非法）拆除的抗议声中，他说：“别担心。‘这笔钱将由我和我一些朋友百分之百出资。’”然而，他可能并未使用自己的钱，也可能未使用朋友的钱。舞厅的预算在8亿美元到接近10亿美元之间。8月，《华盛顿邮报》报道称，其中大部分资金将来自纳税人。
Absent from the list of donors to Trump's ballroom is Trump. Last year, amid outcry about the (illegal) demolition of the East Wing, he said don't worry. "It’s being paid for a hundred percent by me and some friends of mine." He might not use his own money, however, and he might not use his friends'. The budget for the ballroom ranges from $800 million to close to a billion dollars. In August, the Post reported most of that would come from taxpayers.
总统在“国王”抗议活动之后因愤怒而拆毁了东翼，而“国王”是美国历史上规模最大的抗议活动。随后他征求所谓的“捐款”用于一项无人想要、无人批准、无人同意的翻新工程。这些所谓的“捐款”实际上是“付费即可玩”——对贿赂的委婉说法。富有的个人和全球企业集团向总统付费以换取特权，包括特赦，而这些款项则通过一个试图洗白其身份的可疑非营利组织进行洗钱。更糟的是，特朗普显然计划夸大预算，将这些“捐款”据为己有，并让美国人民买单。
The president knocked down the East Wing in a fit of rage after No Kings, the biggest protest in American history. Then he solicited "donations" for a renovation no one wanted, no one approved, no one consented to. The "donations" were really "pay for play," a cute name for bribery. Rich individuals and global conglomerates paid for favors from the president, including pardons, the cash being laundered through a shady nonprofit that tried to whitewash their identities. Compounding the injury is Trump's apparent plan to inflate the budget, keep the "donations" for himself, and stick the American people with the bill.
我不知道历史是否会重演。然而，我想指出，镀金时代催生了进步时代——那是20世纪初前所未有的社会和政治改革时期，它源于对前一个时代的堕落与免责的反击。我也想指出，美联社的一项新民调显示，一种新的共识正在形成，即特朗普正成为我们这个21世纪镀金时代的象征。
I don't know if history is going to repeat itself. However, I will note that the Gilded Age begat the Progressive Era, a period of unprecedented social and political reform in the early 20th century that rose from the backlash against the decadence and impunity of the previous era. I will also note a new poll by the Associated Press that suggests the emergence of a new consensus in which Trump is becoming symbolic of our own 21st-century Gilded Age.
美联社发现，“随着特朗普的家族企业因其政策而推动的新业务带来创纪录的收入”，大约60%的人认为他“要么是在非法牟利，要么是在做一些不道德但不违法的事情”。超过一半的人认为他自重返白宫以来“很大程度上”优先考虑了自己的财务利益。只有10%的人认为他“很大程度上”专注于此。
The AP found that "as Trump’s family business pulls in record money from new ventures helped by his policies," about 60 percent believe he is "either illegally profiting or doing something unethical but not illegal." Over half believe he has privileged his financial interests "a lot" since returning to the White House. Just 10 percent think he is focused “a lot” on them.
看来美国人正在越来越多地将这些点连起来。不仅仅是他们在挣扎维持生计，而是特朗普的选择正是这种挣扎的根源。一项新的福克斯民调显示，总统的支持率仅为36%。这比乔治·W·布什在第二任期同期的支持率低四个百分点——也就是他所在政党在2006年中期选举中惨败前一个月。共和党在那次选举中失去了国会两院的控制权。最后说一句。关于今天的“强盗 baron”。
It appears that Americans are increasingly connecting the dots. It's not just that they are struggling to make ends meet. It's that Trump's choices are the reason for that struggle. A new Fox poll has the president's approval at just 36 percent. That's four points lower than George W Bush's was this time during his second term, the month before his party was wiped out. The GOP lost both chambers of the Congress in the 2006 midterms. A final word. About today's "robber barons."
他们包括家喻户晓的品牌领袖：微软、苹果、谷歌。唐纳德·特朗普已被赋予豁免权，但最高法院并未对他们赋予豁免权。未来，如果他们因行贿行为无法被起诉，他们的公司可能面临政府的严厉监管或反垄断法的制裁。他们都是垄断企业。他们以某种方式都违反了法律。即将到来的反弹也将针对他们。
They include leaders of household brands: Microsoft, Apple, Google. Donald Trump has been bestowed with immunity, but the Supreme Court did not bestow it on them. In the future, if they cannot be prosecuted for bribery, their firms are exposed, potentially, to either furious government oversight or the hammer of antitrust law. They're all monopolies. They're all illegal in one way or another. The coming backlash is going to be against them, too.