希望边境研究所执行主任迪伦·科尔贝特最近对《国家天主教记者》表示，我们正经历着“国家灵魂的黑暗之夜”。他说得对。
Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, recently told the National Catholic Reporter that we are going through “a dark night of the soul as a country.”He’s right.
就在上个月，几个孩子聚集在法庭上，由一名德克萨斯州法官决定他们的未来。其中一个六岁的孩子假装在驾驶飞机；另一个三岁的孩子在玩麦克风。他们是当天面临遣返听证会的25名未成年人之一。
Just last month, several children gathered in a courtroom to have their futures decided by a Texas judge. One was a six-year-old who pretended to fly an airplane; another was a three-year-old who played with a microphone. They were among 25 minors facing deportation hearings that day.
安吉尔就是其中之一。他才13岁，恳求说被遣返回洪都拉斯“太危险了”，并补充道：“我的妈妈和我整个家庭都在这里。”法官裁定安吉尔不符合庇护资格，并问他是否希望接受遣返令或自愿离开。此时，安吉尔哭着喊叫：“我没有亲人。我一无所有。”这些德克萨斯州年轻孩子的故事并不是特朗普政府对移民施加残酷待遇的唯一例子。
Angel was one of them. Just 13 years old, he pleaded that it was “too dangerous” to be returned to Honduras, adding, “My mom and my entire family are here.”The judge ruled that Angel did not qualify for asylum and asked whether he wanted either a deportation order or would leave voluntarily. At that, Angel burst into tears crying: “I have no one. I have nothing.”The stories of those young Texas children are not the only examples of the cruelties inflicted upon immigrants by the Trump administration.
移民与海关执法局特工已经杀害了美国公民，并在我们的街道上巡逻。孩子们担心放学回家时父母是否还在家。许多遵守规则的移民不仅没有被遣返回祖国，反而被送往南苏丹、斯威士兰和卢旺达等地。
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have murdered U.S. citizens and patrol our streets. Children wonder whether their parents will be home when they return from school. And many immigrants who have followed the rules are being deported not to their home countries, but to places like South Sudan, Eswatini and Rwanda.
今年早些时候，雷内·古德和亚历克斯·普雷蒂因在明尼阿波利斯街头被公开处决而成为家喻户晓的名字。在缅因州比德福德，外卖工人约翰·塞巴斯蒂安·杜兰·格雷罗在妻子和三岁女儿面前被ICE特工枪杀。休斯顿，德克萨斯州，洛伦佐·萨尔加多·阿劳霍在前往建筑工地上班的路上被ICE特工枪杀。
Earlier this year, Renée Good and Alex Pretti became household names when they were publicly executed on the streets of Minneapolis. In Biddeford, Maine, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a food delivery worker, was killed by an ICE officer in front of his wife and three-year-old daughter. Houston, Texas, saw Lorenzo Salgado Araujo gunned down by ICE agents as he was on his way to a job at a construction site.
过去一年里，有37人死于ICE拘留所，其中许多人姓氏为西班牙裔，虽然他们的名字不为人所知，但为上帝所知。
During the past year, 37 people have died in ICE custody, many with Hispanic surnames whose identities are not household names but are known to God.
在华盛顿特区为世界移民与难民日举行的天主教弥撒上，华盛顿总教区主教罗伯特·麦克埃尔罗伊诵读了好撒玛利亚人的故事。在这个故事中，耶稣基督描述了一位祭司和利未人看到路边的抢劫受害者后路过，只有撒玛利亚人停下，为受害者处理伤口，并支付了他在附近旅店的住宿费用。
At a Catholic mass held for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert McElroy recited the story of the Good Samaritan. In it, Jesus Christ describes a priest and Levite who saw a robbery victim laying on the side of the road and passed by. Only the Samaritan stopped, treated the victim’s wounds, and paid for his stay at a nearby inn.
正如麦克埃尔罗伊主教所指出的，厌恶祭司和利未人、赞赏好撒玛利亚人很容易。但我们在故事中扮演什么角色？
As Cardinal McElroy noted, it’s easy to dislike the priest and the Levite, and admire the Good Samaritan. But who are we in the story?
当移民被驱逐出境，农场工人和家得宝（Home Depot）遭到突袭，母亲和儿童被拘留时，我们许多人已经扮演了祭司和利未人的角色，视而不见。
When migrants are deported, raids on farm workers and Home Depots take place and mothers and children are detained, many of us have assumed the role of the priest and Levite and passed on by.
当特朗普政府解散了海外拯救了数百万生命的美国国际开发署（USAID）时，许多人开始疑惑：“我们能做什么？”
When the Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has saved millions of lives overseas, many wondered, “What can we do?”
特朗普曾自称“有史以来最伟大的总统”。学者们持不同意见。哈佛大学政府学教授史蒂文·莱维茨基（Steven Levitsky）认为，在特朗普第二个任期内，美国已经“滑向某种形式的威权主义”。
Donald Trump has called himself “the greatest president ever.”Scholars disagree. Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University, contends that during Trump’s second term in office the U.S. has “slid into some form of authoritarianism.”
美国人对特朗普同样感到失望。《经济学人》/YouGov民意调查显示，大多数受访者形容他为“傲慢”、“机会主义”、“鲁莽”、“不诚实”、“腐败”、“虚伪”和“制造分裂”。用“特朗普主义”（Trumpism）一词来概括过去十年并不为过——这个词涵盖了特朗普造成的残忍、我们政治制度的堕落以及对法治的攻击。
Americans are equally disenchanted with Trump. An Economist/YouGov poll finds hefty majorities describe him as “arrogant,” “opportunistic,” “reckless,” “dishonest,” “corrupt,” “hypocritical” and “divisive.”It is easy to characterize the past decade as the era of Trumpism, a word that encompasses the cruelties inflicted by Trump, the degradation of our political institutions and attacks on the rule of law.
用一个词来描述一个政治时代此前曾发生过一次，那是在1950年代，当时威斯康星州参议员约瑟夫·麦卡锡（Joseph McCarthy，R-Wisc.）指控美国政府已被共产主义同情者渗透。哈里·杜鲁门宣称，麦卡锡唯一的意义在于他的名字“已经获得了词典含义”。
Using a word to describe a political era happened once before during the 1950s, when Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc.) charged that the U.S. government had been infiltrated by communist sympathizers. Harry Truman declared that McCarthy’s only importance was that his name “has taken on a dictionary meaning”.
“这是一个惯于说谎的煽动者登上权力之位的过程；也是恐惧情绪在社会各层面蔓延、人们对社会信任逐渐瓦解的过程。”
“It is the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and destruction of faith in every level of our society.”
杜鲁门对麦卡锡主义的定义同样适用于“特朗普主义”。但危险之处在于：就像20世纪50年代那样，日后我们回顾当下时，或许只会将一切归咎于那个滥用权力、行恶事之人。终有一天，我们每个人都会被问到：“当街头有人丧命、儿童被关押，当无数难以尽数的暴行不断发生之时，你做了什么？”正如麦克尔罗伊红衣主教所言，你是选择“视而不见、漠然路过”吗？还是能够坦然回答：自己曾发起抗议、投下选票，或以其他方式表达了立场？
Truman’s definition of McCarthyism can be applied to the word Trumpism. But the danger is that like the 1950s, we will look upon this present moment and blame one man who used his power for nefarious purposes. Someday each of us will be asked the question, “What did you do when people were killed on the streets, or children held in detention, or when other cruelties too numerous to mention were inflicted on others?”Did you, as Cardinal McElroy said, “pass on by”? Or will you be able to say that you protested, voted or otherwise made your views known?
在1953年的就职演说中，德怀特·D·艾森豪威尔向全能的上帝做了这样一段祈祷：“求您赐予我们明辨是非的能力，让我们的言行皆以正义与本国法律为准则。”
In his 1953 inaugural address, Dwight D. Eisenhower offered “a little private prayer” to the Almighty: “Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from wrong, and allow all our words and actions to be governed thereby, and by the laws of this land.”
他还呼吁那些“持有不同政治信仰的人”以合作为目标，“共同为我们深爱的祖国谋福祉，为荣耀您的圣名”。这同样应当成为我们的祈愿。对特朗普的历史清算，终将到来。
He asked for cooperation to be the goal for those who “hold to differing political faiths; so that all may work for the good of our beloved country and Thy Glory.”This too, should be our prayer. A historical reckoning with Trump is coming.
约翰·肯尼思·怀特是美国天主教大学的荣誉教授，目前在Substack平台撰写文章。他与马修·R·科尔贝尔合著的最新著作名为《民主岌岌可危：特朗普时代的选举与美国政治的未来》。
John Kenneth White is a professor emeritus at The Catholic University of America who writes on Substack. His latest book, coauthored with Matthew R. Kerbel, is titled “Democracy on the Edge: The Trump Elections and the Future of American Politics.“