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近年来，奥弗顿窗口变得更像一条大道，因为一系列以前被视为离谱的观点已成为标准话语的一部分。原因有很多；首当其冲的是社交媒体，在那里极端分子相互煽动；还有唐纳德·特朗普，他天生就不需要这样的鼓励。
In recent years the Overton window has become more like an avenue, as a wide range of previously outlandish views have become part of standard discourse. There are many reasons for this; top of the list are social media, where berserkers egg each other on, and Donald Trump, who was born needing no such encouragement.
然而，上周的新闻表明，可能仍然有可能走得太远。10月13日，白宫表示，它已要求希腊大使金伯利·吉尔福伊尔辞职，此前《华尔街日报》连续发表了一系列关于她狭隘自利行为的严厉报道。15日，政府表示，它最终不会直播陆军军官尼达尔·哈桑的处决，他在2009年于一个军事基地杀害了13人、致32人受伤。16日，白宫在其上任仅五天后解雇了其无能的新任新闻秘书凯蒂·扎卡里亚。羞耻感是否会卷土重来？
However, the past week has brought news that it might still be possible to go too far. On October 13th the White House said it had asked Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ambassador to Greece, to resign, after a series of damning reports by the Wall Street Journal over her narrow self-dealing. On the 15th the administration said that it would not, after all, livestream the execution of an army officer, Nidal Hasan, who had killed 13 people and wounded 32 others at a military base in 2009. And on the 16th the White House fired its inept new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, after only five days on the job. Could shame be back?
相反的证据仍然存在。上周还发生了联邦对民主党众议员伊尔汉·奥马尔住宅的突袭，这是对她公民身份状况的调查的一部分；此外还有证据表明，尽管法院曾下令他停止，特朗普先生仍继续使用纳税人资金为自己投放广告。
There remains strong evidence to the contrary. The past week has also brought a federal raid on the home of a Democratic congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, in an investigation of her citizenship status; as well as evidence that Mr Trump continued to use taxpayer funds to pay for ads promoting himself, despite a court order that he stop.
对吉尔福伊尔的解雇不太可能表明将对腐败进行更广泛的打压。她本来就在特朗普世界的边缘（她是唐纳德·特朗普 Jr.的前未婚妻），并且她把可怜的请求写了下来。在她参议院确认听证会前几天，《华尔街日报》报道称，她给一位捐助者发了一条短信，请他转账10万美元以还清信用卡账单：“亲爱的，请你今天帮我把这件事办好，”她写道，并附上了一个祈祷的手势表情符号。
The rejection of Ms Guilfoyle is unlikely to signal a broader clampdown on corruption. She was already on the periphery of Trumpworld (she is the ex-fiancée of Don junior) and put her pathetic requests in writing. Days before her Senate confirmation hearing, the Journal reported, she sent a text to a donor asking him to wire $100,000 to pay down a credit-card bill: “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” she messaged, adding a praying-hands emoji.
同样，决定不直播枪决，也难以让人过分欣慰。对于特朗普的战争部长皮特·赫格塞思来说，让处决公开似乎是对美国死刑制度的一种令人兴奋的改进。“我们会确保人们能够观看，”他上周对一位采访者说。包括许多共和党人在内的广泛批评，似乎让特朗普意识到，他战争部长的偏好可能有些超出常规。去年唯一进行公开处决的国家是伊朗和阿富汗；如果美国这样做，将成为有史以来第一个直播此类杀戮的国家。
Similarly, it is hard to be too comforted by the decision not to broadcast a firing squad. For Pete Hegseth, Mr Trump’s secretary of war, making an execution public seemed to be an exciting enhancement of American capital punishment. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it,” he told an interviewer last week. Widespread criticism, including by many Republicans, appears to have woken up Mr Trump to the notion that the proclivities of his secretary of war may be somewhat outside the norm. The only countries to have public executions last year were Iran and Afghanistan; America would have had the distinction of being the first country ever to livestream such a killing.
尽管如此，耻辱复兴总得从某个时候开始（我想？），所以也许有一天，历史会把本周标记为其开端。除了本周白宫明显流露出的悔恨，或许还有尴尬之外，民主党人也在变得更擅长羞辱他人。多年来，他们似乎只能尖刻或自命不清。现在，佐治亚州的民主党参议员乔恩·奥索夫正在展示如何以冷静的语气发表尖锐批评，嘲讽总统是“世界上最著名的输不起者”，并嘲讽他的共和党挑战者——此人与白人至上主义者有联系——为“一个摇摇欲坠的小偏执狂”。
Nevertheless, the shame renaissance has to start sometime (I think?), so perhaps history will one day mark this week as its beginning. In addition to the glimmers of regret and, might I dare hope, embarrassment evident at the White House this week, Democrats are getting better at shaming. For years they seemed able to sound only shrill or pious. Now Jon Ossoff, a Democratic senator in Georgia, is showing how to deliver lacerating critiques with a cool air, deriding the president as “the world’s most famous sore loser” and his Republican challenger, who has been linked to white supremacists, as “a crumbling little bigot”.
在堪萨斯州，参议院民主党候选人亚当·汉密尔顿正在确立一种道德标准，而又不显得过于说教——这本身就是一项成就，因为他是一家大型教会的牧师。他的对手、一位名叫罗杰·马歇尔的医生，让这变得更容易。一则针对他的广告中，一名前患者表示，她在怀孕八个月时因错过一笔50美元的付款而被捕。
In Kansas Adam Hamilton, a Democrat running for Senate, is asserting a moral standard without sounding overly preachy—a feat, given that he’s a pastor of a megachurch. His opponent, a doctor named Roger Marshall, makes that easier. An ad against him features a former patient saying she was arrested while eight months pregnant for missing a $50 payment.
羞辱的对象不仅仅是共和党人。达里亚莉萨·阿维拉·谢瓦利耶（Darializa Avila Chevalier）是一名民主社会主义者，她在六月赢得了纽约州的国会初选，尽管几年前她曾称乔·拜登为“强奸犯”，并写下“去他妈的卡玛拉·哈里斯”；她曾获得纽约市长佐兰·曼达尼（Zohran Mamdani）的背书，而忏悔并未出现在她的竞选中。
Shaming is being directed not only at Republicans. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democratic Socialist, won a congressional primary in New York in June, despite a few years earlier calling Joe Biden “a rapist” and writing “fuck Kamala Harris”; she had earned the endorsement of New York’s popular mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and contrition did not feature in her campaign.
但就在过去一周，支持一个无耻候选人的风险变得更加明显。阿维拉·谢瓦利耶要求曼达尼解雇他称职的警察局长，理由是移民和海关执法局特工开枪射击了一起事件——这一要求毫无道理。因此，根据《纽约邮报》所谓的“羞辱高祭司”的说法，市政厅内部人士现在开始抱怨。该报保守派文章兴高采烈地写道：“一记镰刀砸在后背上！”
But in the past week the risks of backing a shameless candidate have become more clear. Ms Avila Chevalier has demanded, nonsensically, that Mr Mamdani sack his competent police chief over a shooting by agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So sources close to City Hall are now griping, according to the high priests of shame at the New York Post. “A sickle to the back!”, the conservative paper wrote gleefully.
一位消息人士对《纽约邮报》说：“市政厅当时就像，‘你他妈在干什么！’”当然，最有效的羞辱者既不是政客，也不是《纽约邮报》的作者，而是表达不满的选民。他们只需几周就将有机会这样做。他们能否让羞辱卷土重来？正如一位前大使所说：“亲爱的，求你了。”
One source told the Post: “City Hall was like, ‘what the fuck are you doing!’”It is of course not politicians, nor even the writers at the Post, who are the most effective shamers, but voters who express their discontent. In just a few weeks they will have a chance to do so. Could they bring back shame? As a former ambassador put it, honey please.
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