温馨的国会山餐厅——也是深受MAGA（让美国再次伟大）支持者喜爱的聚会场所——Butterworth's周五上午不营业，所以Nick Solheim让我从侧门进去。
The Scene The cozy Capitol Hill restaurant — andfavorite MAGA clubhouse — Butterworth’s is closed on Friday mornings, so Nick Solheim let me in through a side door.
他2021年联合创立的组织American Moment（美国时刻）正在楼上为一群认真年轻的右翼政治幕僚举办培训，共有17名男性和1名女性。当我探头进屋时，他们正听一位围绕特朗普白宫活动的非主流经济学家讲解传统自由贸易观念的弊端。
American Moment, the group he cofounded in 2021, was leading a training upstairs for a group of earnest young right-wing political staffers, 17 men and one woman. When I poked my head into the room, they were listening to one of the heterodox economists orbiting the Trump White House explain what is wrong with traditional notions of free trade.
这些年轻保守派是华盛顿一个新阶层的先锋，你在联邦机构和国会办公室的初级岗位上都能遇到他们。这让我不禁思考：这些非常友善、非常年轻、非常MAGA的孩子们到底从哪里冒出来的？当我在小布什和奥巴马政府时期担任华盛顿记者时，有抱负的年轻保守派参与宾夕法尼亚大学的共和党政治活动，或为达特茅斯学院的保守派学生报纸撰稿。
These young conservatives are the vanguard of a new class in Washington that you encounter at the junior levels of federal agencies and congressional offices. It left me wondering: Where did all these very nice, very young, and very MAGA kids ?When I worked as a reporter in Washington during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the ambitious young conservatives were involved in Republican politics at Penn or writing for the conservative student newspaper at Dartmouth.
他们后来成了所谓的“新保守派”——其中许多人至今仍掌握着保守派华盛顿的权力职位，尽管他们的政治立场已转变以更好地契合唐纳德·特朗普总统的路线。
They would go on to become the so-called neocons — many of whom still occupy positions of power in conservative Washington, though their politics have shifted to better match President Donald Trump’s.
这代新成员更可能在俄亥俄州哥伦布市等城市外长大，就读于州立大学或基督教学院。American Moment的首席执行官Solheim是一位精干的红发29岁青年，他自夸从未录取过常春藤盟校校友进入其组织。在特朗普政府和共和党国会办公室的工作中，American Moment的研究员们大量从事接听电话的工作，他们总是礼貌地记下口信并回电——有时会传达一句惊人的特朗普式言论，或对移民与海关执法局（ICE）逮捕行动的强硬辩护。
The members of this new generation are more likely to have grown up outside a city like Columbus, Ohio, and to have gone to state school or Christian college. Solheim, a compact, red-headed 29-year-old who is American Moment’s CEO, boasts he’s never admitted an Ivy League alumnus to his organization. In their jobs in the Trump administration and Republican congressional offices, American Moment’s fellows do a lot of answering the phones, and they always politely take a message and call back — sometimes with an outrageous Trumpian statement or hardline defense of ICE arrests to pass on.
“我在政治上成熟的年代，拥有‘尖锐的手肘’（指敢于激烈争斗）至关重要，但我就是没在当下这些年轻保守派身上看到这一点，”传统基金会主席凯文·罗伯茨说道，他称美国时刻是“当今保守运动中最重要的组织之一”。
“I came of age politically when it was really important to have sharp elbows, and I just don’t see that in these young conservatives,” said Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, who calls American Moment “one of the most important organizations in the conservative movement today.”
索尔海姆与杰克·梅西耶、萨拉布·夏尔马共同创立了美国时刻，后者后来离开该组织，在特朗普的总统人事办公室担任高级职务。该组织2024年的预算为200万美元，并未刻意寻求或获得太多宣传曝光：夏尔马2023年在美国时刻的播客节目中表示，如果由他决定，“这将是一个完全的‘暗黑技艺’项目，几乎像冰川一样。你只会看到露出水面微不足道的10%，其余部分完全在无人关注的情况下进行。”
Solheim started American Moment with Jake Mercier and Saurabh Sharma, the latter of whom left the organization for a senior role in Trump’s presidential personnel office. The group, which had a $2 million budget in 2024, hasn’t sought or gotten much publicity: Sharma said on American Moment’s podcast in 2023 that if he had his preference, “this would be a completely dark-arts project, almost like a glacier. You’d see a tiny 10% poking out over top, and the rest of it would happen without any attention whatsoever.”
他说到那时为止，他们已培训了约1500名年轻保守派；索尔海姆表示，这一数字现在已达数千人。（本月初，索尔海姆仅允许我短暂、以不记名方式窥探了一下培训情况。）他们的目标是将特朗普这一代年轻人带到华盛顿。这部分意味着要拓宽人才渠道，不再局限于拥有精英背景的人士。该项目设有明确的意识形态门槛：申请人应当反对移民、自由贸易和海外冒险主义。
By then, he said, they’d trained about 1,500 young conservatives; that number, Solheim said, is now several thousand. (Earlier this month, Solheim would only let me in for a brief, off-the-record peek at the training.) Their goal has been to bring the Trump generation of young people to Washington. That has partly meant broadening the pipeline beyond those with elite credentials. The program has clear ideological tests: Applicants should oppose immigration, free trade, and foreign adventures.
“我们的目标是培养出1万个斯蒂芬·米勒，”索尔海姆去年9月在播客节目中说。他告诉我，这位强硬派的特朗普助手之所以成为榜样，不仅因为他的高效，还“因为他的职业轨迹完美契合我们试图让年轻人实现的目标。从初级参议院助理到总统助理，中间的每一个阶段。”他们的大部分培训都很务实：该组织每学期在其最密集、有薪酬的项目中招收15到30名有薪研究员，教他们把衬衫扎进裤子、每天洗澡、不知疲倦地建立人脉。
“Our goal is to create 10,000 Stephen Millers,” Solheim said on the podcast last September. He told me the hardline Trump aide is a model not only for his effectiveness, but also “because his career trajectory perfectly tracks what we’re attempting to achieve with our young people. From junior Senate staffer to assistant to the president, and everything in between.”Much of their training is practical: The group takes in 15-30 paid fellows each semester in its most intensive, paid program, and teaches them to tuck in their shirts, shower daily, and network relentlessly.
培训包括模拟社交酒会，以及发放额度100美元的信用卡用于请人喝咖啡。（索尔海姆本人偏爱Butterworth's的Vesper马提尼。）该项目在特朗普政府内部备受推崇，包括副总统JD·万斯，他在American Moment早期担任过顾问。万斯的前国家安全顾问安迪·贝克正作为高级顾问加入该组织。
The training includes mock networking happy hours and credit cards with $100 to take people out to coffee. (Solheim himself favors Butterworth’s Vesper martini.) The project is well-regarded inside the Trump administration, including by Vice President JD Vance, who was an adviser to American Moment in its early days. Vance’s former national security adviser, Andy Baker, is joining the group as a senior adviser.
“当人们雇佣American Moment的研究员时，他们知道得到的是一个经历过意识形态和智识熏陶、且委托人可能认同的人，”保守派伙伴关系研究所项目副总裁、该组织董事会成员雷切尔·博瓦德说。“他们也知道你应当如何行事的标准。”来自左派和右派的批评者指责该组织过于贴近网络右翼的种族主义和虚无主义。该组织播客的嘉宾曾包括杰里米·卡尔，这位特朗普政府官员的提名因其关于反白人种族主义的观点被视为过于极端而受阻。秉承万斯与塔克·卡尔森的关系精神，索尔海姆及其盟友避免批评右侧的盟友。
“When people hire a fellow from American Moment, they know they are getting someone who has had ideological and intellectual formation with whom the principal may agree,” said Rachel Bovard, the vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute and a member of the group’s board. “And they know the standards of how you should behave.”American Moment’s critics on the left and the right accuse the group of flying too close to the racism and nihilism of the online right. The group’s podcast guests have included Jeremy Carl, a Trump administration official whose confirmation faltered because his views on anti-white racism were seen as too extreme. In the spirit of Vance’s relationship with Tucker Carlson, Solheim and his allies avoid criticizing allies to the right.
但在年轻美国右翼的分类学中，存在程度上的差异。参与“美国时刻”的人士坚称，他们会筛查极端推文，告诫同僚远离互联网，避免搞“边缘大师”式政治。
But in the taxonomy of the young American right, there are degrees of difference. People involved in American Moment insist they screen for extremist tweets, telling their fellows to stay off the internet and avoid edgelord politics.
“通过‘美国时刻’的，你没见过保罗·英格拉西亚那类人，”一位特朗普政府官员说道，指的是一位同事，此人在泄露的短信中提到自己有“纳粹倾向”。
“You haven’t seen the Paul Ingrassia types come through American Moment,” said one Trump administration official, referring to a colleague who noted his own “Nazi streak” in leaked text messages.
与此同时，白人至上主义者尼克·富恩特斯将“美国时刻”列入敌人名单，与“新保守主义者”和“犹太复国主义者”并列。他曾对沙玛及该组织发表长篇种族主义咆哮。
White supremacist Nick Fuentes, meanwhile, groups American Moment on his enemies list with “neocons” and “Zionists.”He once delivered an extended racist rant directed at Sharma and the group.
“只要你稍微沾边尼克·富恩特斯或他说的任何东西，你就进不来，”博瓦德说。相反，该组织认识到，“特别是对年轻男性来说，外面有虚无主义和安德鲁·泰特的这种有毒大杂烩，如果你一无所有，这很有吸引力。‘美国时刻’项目的部分工作，就是接纳这样的年轻男性，给他们目标感。” “美国时刻”目前面临的最大挑战，与下个月让共和党选民在投票箱前感到棘手的挑战如出一辙：即使他们觉得移民与海关执法局（ICE）的清剿行动令人振奋，却因伊朗战争感到被背叛。
“If you are at all adjacent to Nick Fuentes or anything he says, you are not getting in,” Bovard said. Instead, the group recognizes that “especially for young men, there’s this toxic stew of nihilism and Andrew Tate out there that can be attractive if you have nothing else. Some of the American Moment project is taking young men like that and giving them purpose.”American Moment’s biggest challenge right now is identical to the one vexing Republican voters at the polls next month: Even if they find ICE’s sweeps inspiring, they feel betrayed by the Iran war.
“许多年轻员工对这场战争感到相当士气低落，”一位政府官员指出。他和一位前特朗普政府官员都告诉我，他们一直在劝说初级职员着眼长远。
“A lot of the younger staff are pretty demoralized by the war,” notes one administration official. He and a former Trump administration official both told me they’d been counseling junior staff to play the long game.
“那些家伙每天都来上班，执行他们不同意的政策，”这位前特朗普政府官员说。“这就是政府工作的本质。”本的观点那些不喜欢特朗普的民主党人和共和党人心中有一种白日梦，认为该党将回归某种“常态”。从某种意义上说，这可能是真的：“美国时刻”群体与政府高层的政治任命官员几乎没有共同点，后者是一群杂牌军，往往因社交关系和财务联系而被选中，目前正因一系列丑闻而陷入困境。
“Those guys are showing up to work every day and carrying out a policy they disagree with,” the former Trump administration official said. “That’s the essence of government work.”Ben’s view There’s a daydream among Democrats and Republicans who dislike Trump that the party will return to something like “normal.”That may in some sense be true: The American Moment crowd has little in common with the political appointees at the higher levels of the administration, a motley crew often chosen for social ties and financial connections that’s currently reeling through a series of lurid scandals.
但我与华盛顿新一代人的接触，让我深信这个党现在已被MAGA的意识形态支柱深刻塑造。几千名经验丰富、称职的职员是任何政治运动的基石。新的共和党领导人将想要有经验的职员，而获得这种经验的年轻人主体现在都是MAGA派。
But my encounter with Washington’s new generation has persuaded me of how deeply this party is now shaped by the ideological pillars of MAGA. A few thousand experienced and competent staffers are the bedrock of any political movement. New Republican leaders will want experienced staff, and the bulk of young people getting that experience are MAGA now.
“他们真心相信许多这样的观点，认为这些观点让特朗普当选，并推动了万斯——但他们希望这些观点能超越他们两人，”博瓦德说。“要过20到30年才能看出他们是否成功。”不同声音老派共和党人坚称，他们与该党内战尚未结束。一位自诩“新保守派”标签、与我同龄的共和党操盘手最近告诉我，他们依然坚信美国对伊朗的攻击将被证明是正义的。
“They genuinely believe in a lot of these ideas that they believe got Trump elected and that propelled JD Vance — but they want these ideas to outlast both of them,” said Bovard. “It’ll take 20 to 30 years to see if they’re successful.”Room for Disagreement Older Republicans insist they aren’t yet done with their party’s civil war. A Republican operative of my generation who embraces the “neocon” label recently told me they remain confident that the US attack on Iran will be vindicated.
这人向我透露，这场战争最好的结果，当然是对伊斯兰共和国造成的打击。但第二好的结果，是迫使“美国时刻”那些孩子去执行并推销这项政策。值得关注
The best thing about the war, this person confided, was of course the damage it has done to the Islamic Republic. But the second-best part was having forced the American Moment kids to implement and sell the policy. Notable