世界各地，选民正在拥抱民主。在塞尔维亚和巴西青年运动的激励下，选民们在上个周末纷纷站出来，选择民主而非威权主义。这股民主力量的双重迸发应当让惶恐的美国民众清楚地看到，自由世界的终结远非不可避免。
Around the world, voters are embracing democracy Galvanized by youth movements in Serbia and Brazil, voters over the weekend came out in droves to their choice for democracy over authoritarianism. The dual outpouring of democratic agency should make clear to a frightened American populace that the end of the free world is far from inevitable.
美国选民必须在下周中期选举投票时效仿塞尔维亚人和巴西人的榜样，向当权者明确表明：国家的命运并不取决于亿万富翁寡头的任性，也不取决于国会民主党人那点微弱的勇气。它取决于美国人民的意志。
American voters must follow the lead of Serbians and Brazilians when they head to the polls for the midterm elections next week by making clear to those in power that the fate of the nation depends not on the whims of billionaire oligarchs or the faint courage of Democrats in Congress. It depends on the will of the American people.
塞尔维亚的学生们仅用了不到两年时间，就成功带头掀起了一场强有力的运动，推翻了总统亚历山大·武契奇执政十二年的政府——该政府饱受失职与腐败的困扰。这场浪潮始于2024年11月1日，当时塞尔维亚第二大城市诺维萨德主干火车站一处突出的混凝土顶棚坍塌，造成十六人死亡。这场悲剧引发了全国性的反武契奇运动，最初是学生们在大学校园里每周举行抗议，后来发展为集会和挨家挨户的拉票活动，口号是“塞尔维亚还是黑手党？”
It took barely two years for students in Serbia to successfully spearhead a powerful movement to bring down president Aleksandar Vucic’s twelve-year government, which was plagued by negligence and corruption. The swell began on Nov. 1, 2024, when a concrete roof jutting from the primary railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, collapsed, killing sixteen people. The tragedy triggered a national campaign against Vucic that started with weekly protests by students on university campuses but grew into rallies and door-to-door campaigns behind a slogan of “Serbia or Mafia?”
这场没有领导者的学生行动演变成一场全国性运动，席卷了塞尔维亚社会的众多群体——包括农民、教师、演员和律师。它在该国于2025年3月在贝尔格莱德举行的最大规模反政府抗议中达到高潮，随后又提出了提前举行议会选举的要求。武契奇最终在9月宣布提前选举，声称抗议者是在“美国深层政府”的支持下试图“搞垮”塞尔维亚。
The leaderless student effort became a national movement capturing numerous segments of Serbian society — including farmers, teachers, actors and lawyers. It culminated in the country’s largest anti-government protest in March 2025 in Belgrade, and later, a demand for early parliamentary elections. Vucic finally announced snap elections in September, claiming the protestors were trying to “bring down” Serbia with the support of “the American deep state.”
投票率创下历史新高，截至当地时间周日晚间已超过67.6%，为1992年南斯拉夫解体以来的最高水平。
Turnout was historic, topping 67.6 percent as of Sunday evening local time, the highest since Yugoslavia’s breakup in 1992.
巴西的民主始于1985年，此前经历了长达21年的军事独裁统治。与塞尔维亚的同龄人一样，巴西青年推动了一场草根竞选活动——该活动利用了跨数字媒体的协同传播。结果，现年80岁的现任总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦击败了右翼候选人弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗，后者是前总统雅伊尔·博尔索纳罗之子。老博尔索纳罗曾拒绝接受自己在2022年败给卢拉的结果，后来因密谋政变企图非法留任而被判处27年监禁。
Brazil’s democracy dates back to 1985, following a 21-year military dictatorship. Like their counterparts in Serbia, Brazil’s youth drove a grassroots campaign – one that capitalized on coordinated messaging across digital media. As a result, the 80-year-old incumbent president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, defeated the right-wing Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. The elder Bolsonaro had refused to accept his own loss to Lula in 2022 and was later sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup to illegally stay in power.
在80%的投票率下，卢拉以52%的得票率获胜，令人震惊，因为他在首轮选举中曾以超过200万票的劣势败给博尔索纳罗。小博尔索纳罗已逃离该国。美国国务院在巴西最高法院一名大法官下令其上交护照（作为洗钱调查的一部分）后，向他发放了签证，特朗普则称该选举“被操纵”。这些自由民主的最新胜利，紧随其后的是六个月前维克托·欧尔班在竞逐继续担任匈牙利领导人时遭遇的历史性失败。
Lula’s 52 percent victory amid 80 percent turnout was stunning, as it came after he had lost to Bolsonaro in the first-round election by over two million votes. The younger Bolsonaro has fled the country. The U.S. State Department issued him a visa after a Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered that he surrender his passport as part of a money laundering investigation, and Trump called the election “rigged.”These latest victories for liberal democracy come on the heels of Viktor Orban’s historic defeat six months ago in his bid to continue as leader of Hungary.
公众对欧尔班担任总理时期的强烈反对——他的任期分别为1998年至2002年以及2010年至2026年——始于2024年，起因是他的政府赦免了一名前儿童之家主任，后者因掩盖性虐待罪行已被定罪。
Public opposition to Orban’s stints as prime minister, which ran from 1998 to 2002 and again from 2010 to 2026, began in earnest in 2024 after his government pardoned a former director of a children’s home who had been convicted of covering up sexual abuse.
正如在塞尔维亚和巴西一样，匈牙利青年也处于最终推翻极右翼政权的最前沿。2022年，高中生帮助在布达佩斯议会前发动了一场3.5万人的抗议活动，反对欧尔班的教育政策，高呼“没有教师，就没有未来”。美国人对自己这座250年历史的民主制度日益感到幻灭，且理由充分。就在中期选举前一周，特朗普总统的支持率接近历史低点。高达73%的近期民调受访者不认可他对燃油价格的应对；52%的人表示计划下个月投票给民主党候选人。
As in Serbia and Brazil, Hungarian youth were at the forefront of ultimately toppling the far-right regime. In 2022, high school students helped stage a 35,000-person protest against Orban’s education policy before the Budapest Parliament, chanting “No teachers, no future.”Americans are increasingly disillusioned with their own 250-year-old democracy, and for good reason. President Trump’s approval rating is near record lows just a week ahead of the midterms. A whopping 73 percent of recent poll respondents disapprove of his handling of fuel prices; 52 percent said they plan to vote for a Democratic candidate next month.
美国民主本身的声望也好不到哪里去。凯特林-盖洛普9月的一项研究显示，仅有19%的美国成年人认为美国民主运行良好；56%的人认为运行不佳。根据哈佛大学10月发布的一项民调，高达91%的选民认为美国走上了错误的道路。根据另一项盖洛普民调，18至20岁美国人的“欣欣向荣”比率从2020年到2026年初下降了20个百分点，仅为44%，只有49%的年轻人预期五年后会拥有高质量的生活。
The popularity of American democracy itself isn’t faring much better. A Kettering-Gallup study from September revealed that only 19 percent of American adults believe that U.S. democracy is performing well; 56 percent said it is doing poorly. According to a poll released by Harvard in October, a staggering 91 percent of voters say the U.S. is on the wrong track. According to another Gallup poll, the “thriving” rate for Americans aged 18-20 fell 20 percentage points from 2020 to early 2026, to just 44 percent, with only 49 percent of young people expecting a high-quality life in five years.
随着汽油和生活成本价格上涨，特朗普在伊朗发动的毫无意义的战争，白宫的极度腐败，人工智能对就业市场的威胁，以及硅谷耗能惊人的数据中心以指数级速度让地球变暖，美国人很可能正处于要求彻底变革的临界点。
With rising gas and cost-of-living prices, Trump’s meaningless war in Iran, abject corruption in the White House, artificial intelligence’s threat to the job market and Silicon Valley’s energy-guzzling data centers warming the planet at exponential rates, Americans may well be on the cusp of demanding radical change.
正如匈牙利、塞尔维亚和巴西的选举似乎所显示的那样，实现变革的途径是投票——而且要以异常巨大的数量投票，而非美国中期选举典型的40%左右合格选民投票率。对于仍倾向于待在家里的美国人来说，教训很简单：当普通民众得出自己的声音不再重要的结论时，威权主义就会滋长。
As the elections in Hungary, Serbia and Brazil seem to show, the way to make change is to vote — and to do so in exceptionally huge numbers, not at the typical 40 percent eligible-voter turnout rate for U.S. midterm elections. For Americans still inclined to stay home, the lesson is simple: Authoritarianism thrives when ordinary people conclude that their voices no longer matter.
如果成年选民不愿为自身着想，或许他们会考虑到我们的孩子面临的重重困境，押注他们的未来依然光明。
If adult voters won’t do it for their own sake, perhaps they will think of the daunting odds stacked against our children and make a bet that their futures will still be bright.
金伯利·惠勒目前担任荷兰高等人文与社会科学研究院主题小组协调员兼研究员，著作有《如何阅读宪法——以及为何要阅读》、《投票须知——以及为何重要》和《如何像律师一样思考——以及为何重要》。
Kimberly Wehle is currently a thematic group coordinator and fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences and author of “How to Read the Constitution — and Why,” as well as “What You Need to Know About Voting — and Why” and “How to Think Like a Lawyer — and Why.“