特朗普花了近两年时间调查、起诉或追究任何曾在政治、媒体或政府中违抗过他的人。如今，随着民主党有望赢得国会一院或两院的控制权，政府及其盟友正准备重新摆出他们熟悉的受害者姿态。
Trump has spent nearly two years investigating, suing, or prosecuting anybody in politics, media, or government who ever defied him. Now, with Democrats poised to win control of one or both chambers of Congress, the administration and its allies are prepared to slip back into their familiar pose of victimhood.
所谓共和党即将遭到政治迫害的证据来自密歇根州参议员埃莉萨·斯洛特金。她最近在芝加哥大学的一场活动上对记者阿斯特德·赫恩登表示，民主党应当追究政府的责任，目的之一是震慑刚毕业的年轻人，使他们不敢参与腐败勾当。“我希望走出校门的年轻人会问，‘我该去为特朗普政府工作吗？’”她说，“我希望他们会想，‘天哪，那可能会给我惹来一大堆我不想要的麻烦，所以还是别掺和进去为好。’”
The putative evidence of imminent GOP persecution comes from Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who recently told the journalist Astead Herndon during an event at the University of Chicago that Democrats should pursue accountability for the administration to, among other goals, deter new graduates from enlisting in corrupt schemes. “I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration?’” she said. “I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that.’”
斯洛特金是上周二发表这番言论的，当时几乎没有引起注意，因为她并没有说什么特别值得关注的话。五天后，一股保守派愤怒的浪潮突然向她袭来。
Slotkin made these remarks last Tuesday, attracting little notice at the time because she didn’t say anything particularly noteworthy. Five days later, a tidal wave of conservative outrage suddenly crashed over her.
共和党的反应颇能说明问题。即便是对特朗普持怀疑态度的保守派也发出信号：一旦有人提出，如果特朗普被认定存在不当行为就应当依法追究，他的政党就会像过去一样团结在他身后。他已经训练本党成员，把对他行为的任何担忧都压抑在党派本能之下。无论特朗普偶尔让他们多么不安，一旦他面临法律后果，他们就会回到他身边。
The Republican response has been revealing. Even Trump-skeptical conservatives are signaling that, just as they have in the past, his party will rally behind him the moment someone proposes that the laws of the country should be enforced if Trump is found to have engaged in misconduct. He has trained members of his party to sublimate any concern they may have about his actions beneath their partisan instincts. However queasy Trump might occasionally make them, they will return to his side the moment he faces the prospect of legal consequences.
“威胁那些参与政治、为祖国服务的美国年轻人，这简直是一种耻辱，”犹他州共和党参议员迈克·李抱怨道。“这种思维方式对我们的国家来说非常有害，”前乔治·W·布什总统的新闻秘书阿里·弗莱舍尔也表达了同样的观点。特朗普的法律顾问迈克·戴维斯在福克斯新闻上的专栏文章，以及作家米兰达·德文的相关报道，都将斯洛特金描绘成一名无端威胁年轻人的暴徒——她之所以这么做，仅仅是因为这些年轻人属于不同的政党。
“It is absolutely disgraceful to threaten young Americans for participating in politics and serving their country,” Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, complained. “This type of thinking is terrible for our country,” Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary to President George W. Bush, chimed in. Columns by the Trump legal adviser Mike Davis in Fox News and the writer Miranda Devine in the depict Slotkin as a goon who was menacing bright-eyed youth for no reason other than their partisan affiliation.
当有记者追问特朗普对此事的看法时，他在白宫表示：“斯洛特金是个卑鄙的人，她正在破坏她的所在州。”
“Slotkin is a lowlife who’s ruining her state,” Trump said in front of the White House when prodded for a reaction by a reporter. Trump went even further, as is his wont.
像往常一样，特朗普的言论更加极端：“这真是一句惊人的话，”他对记者们说，“斯洛特金居然主张应该通过起诉来恐吓人们，让他们不敢参与政治。”事实上，斯洛特金根本没有提到任何关于起诉的内容；她只是讨论了国会的监督机制，并具体描述了一种民主党控制国会但无法控制行政部门的情景。她主张采取一种审慎、有针对性的措施，只针对那些最明目张胆的腐败行为进行打击。
“That’s a hell of a statement,” he told reporters. “Slotkin said that there should be prosecutions in order to scare people from going into politics.”In point of fact, Slotkin didn’t say anything about prosecutions. She was discussing congressional oversight and specifically describing a scenario in which Democrats had control of Congress but not the executive branch. She was arguing for a measured and focused approach, prioritizing only the most blatant forms of corruption.
“对于我们目前所面临的这种令人难以置信的腐败现象，我们确实必须追究责任，”她说，“但你们不能把追究责任当作自己的主要目标。因此，你们应该挑选那些典型的腐败案例，重点打击那些极其恶劣的腐败行为。”在谈话中，赫恩登指出，特朗普通过在法院系统中安插自己的亲信，并在共和党及联邦政府中安排自己的支持者，从而在很大程度上使自己免于受到问责。这时，斯洛特金指出：揭露政府的腐败行为可能会让那些有抱负的共和党人在政府执政的最后几年里选择不再加入政府。
“We do have to have accountability for the unbelievable corruption that we are living under right now,” she said. “But you can’t just make that your whole personality. So you have to pick signature cases, and you have to go after people and projects that are just super egregious.”Later in the conversation, Herndon noted that Trump has largely insulated himself from accountability by stacking the courts and installing loyalists throughout his party and the federal government. That’s when Slotkin pointed out that exposing the administration’s corruption might deter ambitious Republicans from joining the administration during its final years.
这些愤怒的回应忽略了斯洛特金言论的第一部分内容——那部分内容实际上强调了有必要调查政府内部普遍存在的不当行为。如果脱离上下文来看，她的言论可能会让人误以为她在威胁年轻的共和党人；但实际上，她的观点是完全可以理解的，甚至可以说是“宽宏大量的”。如果有人正打算为伊丽莎白·霍姆斯工作，那么揭露 Theranos 公司的创始人其实是个骗子，这样做反而是在帮助他们。
The outraged responses omitted the first part of Slotkin’s remarks, which point out the need to investigate the administration’s pervasive misconduct. Out of context, it sounds as if Slotkin is threatening young Republicans because of malevolence. But in context, her comments are understandable, even generous. If you knew a young person who had been planning to go to work for Elizabeth Holmes, deterring them by exposing the Theranos founder as a con artist would have been doing them a favor.
假装特朗普政府是无辜的，不过是一种表面的防御手段罢了。那些反对调查（甚至最终起诉）任何腐败行为的论点，通常会声称这样做会引发一系列报复行为。
Pretending that the Trump administration is innocent is just the first line of defense. The fallback argument against investigating, and perhaps eventually prosecuting, any corruption is that doing so will set off a cycle of retribution.
一篇社论指责斯洛特金“本质上是在承诺采取一种‘焦土政策’（即不惜一切代价进行斗争）”，认为这会招致报复。“这正是民主党人在拜登执政期间对特朗普发起的多起诉讼所导致的结果：特朗普现在也在试图将政治分歧定为犯罪行为；而斯洛特金女士则誓言要继续采取同样的手段。这样的做法只会让局势更加恶化，导致政治功能进一步失调。”这篇社论这样写道。前布什政府法律顾问杰克·戈德史密斯也在自己的 Substack 文章中表达了类似的观点。
A editorial accuses Slotkin of “essentially promising a scorched-earth lawfare campaign” that will invite reprisals. “This is where the multiple prosecutions that Democrats unleashed against Mr. Trump in the Biden years are taking us. Mr. Trump is retaliating with similar attempts to criminalize political differences. And now Ms. Slotkin is vowing more of the same. Down this road lies more bitterness and political dysfunction,” the editorial laments. Jack Goldsmith, a former Bush-administration legal adviser, makes a similar argument in a Substack column.
人们担心两党会陷入报复的循环之中——这种观点虽然听起来高尚，但实际上很肤浅。的确，特朗普在卸任后确实面临了各种调查；而他也将这些调查作为自己实施“法律恐怖统治”的借口。
The fear that the two parties are locked in a cycle of retribution has a certain high-minded but superficial appeal. It’s true that Trump faced investigations after leaving office, and that he has cited these investigations as a rationale for his reign of legal terror.
但乔·拜登的所作所为与此截然不同。他任命了一位两党都敬重的司法部长梅里克·加兰。加兰行事谨慎，遵循传统程序，在特朗普拒绝配合调查的证据——拿走机密文件、对多次归还要求置之不理，继而试图误导联邦调查人员——过于明显而无法忽视时，任命杰克·史密斯为特别检察官。特朗普确实遭遇过一次有问题的起诉：曼哈顿检察官阿尔文·布拉格指控他向斯托米·丹尼尔斯支付封口费构成竞选财务违规。但那并非拜登授意。
But Joe Biden did not behave in a remotely similar fashion. He appointed an attorney general, Merrick Garland, who commanded bipartisan respect. Garland operated cautiously, following traditional procedure, and appointed Jack Smith as a special counsel when evidence of Trump’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation—taking classified documents, stonewalling repeated requests to return them, and then trying to mislead federal investigators—was too blatant to ignore. Trump did face one questionable prosecution: Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan prosecutor, charged that his hush money to Stormy Daniels was a campaign-finance violation. But that was not something Biden directed.
此外，特朗普监禁对手的野心早于拜登的任何行动，任何记得“把她关起来！”口号的人都应 readily 承认这一点。特朗普在第一个任期内未能有效起诉他的敌人，主要是因为他受制于一个工作人员致力于传统独立规范的司法部，而非缺乏尝试。相反，特朗普在第一个任期的大部分时间里都在试图让他的司法部长们像罗伊·科恩那样行事。他施压乌克兰政府炮制对拜登的调查，并最终任命特别检察官约翰·达勒姆调查各种敌人，结果达勒姆却一败涂地。
Besides, Trump’s ambition to imprison his opponents preceded anything Biden did, as anybody who remembers the “Lock her up!” chants should readily concede. Trump was unable to effectively prosecute his enemies during his first term, largely because he was stuck with a Justice Department whose staff was committed to traditional norms of independence, not for lack of trying. To the contrary, Trump spent most of his first term trying to make his attorneys general act like Roy Cohn. He pressured Ukraine’s government to gin up an investigation of Biden, and he eventually appointed a special counsel, John Durham, to investigate various enemies, only for Durham to fall on his face.
理解特朗普动机的最合逻辑方式是，他一直将法律视为建议而非硬性要求，并倾向于认为掌权者会滥用权力来保护朋友、惩罚敌人。民主党的法律战并未将这种信念植入特朗普心中。他和他的盟友将继续调查虚假罪行并犯下真实罪行，因为特朗普从根本上不相信法治。
The most logical way to understand Trump’s motive is that he has always viewed laws as suggestions rather than hard requirements, and tended to assume that people in power will abuse it to protect their friends and punish their enemies. Democratic lawfare did not implant this belief in Trump. He and his allies are going to continue investigating fake crimes and committing real ones, because Trump fundamentally does not believe in the rule of law.
最奇怪的是，在中期选举冲刺阶段决定将这一问题推向风口浪尖的，不是民主党，而是共和党。人们不禁要问，为什么一群共和党人在事发数天后突然涌现出来，开始对斯洛特金大肆抨击？
What is most peculiar is that the Democrats aren’t the party that has decided to elevate this question in the closing days of the midterm campaign. The Republicans are. Why, you might wonder, did a phalanx of Republicans emerge several days after the fact to start screaming about Slotkin?
反反特朗普派共和党人（其中《国家评论》是主要代言人）常援引穆勒调查和特朗普首次遭弹劾，称这些事件让他们动摇的党派忠诚度重新燃起。布拉格对特朗普的错误起诉，帮助特朗普在已准备好在“1月6日事件”后翻篇的共和党人中恢复了声望。戴维斯在X上写道：“亲爱的@ElissaSlotkin：你在中期选举前夕团结了分裂的共和党人。”
Anti-anti-Trump Republicans, of which the is a leading voice, often invoke the Mueller investigation and the first Trump impeachment as radicalizing events that reignited their wavering partisan attachment. The misguided Bragg indictment of Trump helped rehabilitate him among Republicans who had been ready to move on after January 6. As Davis wrote on X, “Dear @ElissaSlotkin: You are rallying fractured Republicans right before the midterms.”
特朗普第二任期内行事享有完全豁免权。共和党控制的国会甚至不假装对行政部门进行监督，司法部甚至不假装关心总统及其盟友是否遵守法律。总统明白，如果他将来必须面对问责，他的党派会为他撑腰。特朗普有两种模式：炫耀他的豁免权，以及沉溺于受害者姿态。眼下，他发现后者在政治上更有利。
Trump in his second term has operated with complete impunity. The Republican Congress is not even pretending to conduct oversight over the executive branch, and the Justice Department is not even pretending to care whether the president and his allies follow the law. The president grasps that if he ever has to face accountability, his party will back him up. Trump has two modes: flaunting his impunity and wallowing in victimization. For the moment, he finds the latter more politically useful.