大卫观点 杰弗里·爱泼斯坦去世的那天，我正在爱荷华州博览会现场聆听总统候选人的演讲，而他并不在他们心中。
David’s view The day Jeffrey Epstein died, I was at the Iowa State Fair hearing from presidential candidates, and he was not exactly on their minds.
当左翼播客主持人询问2020年大选竞选人是否会调查这名已定罪性犯罪者的死因时，有几位显得不知所措。他们为许多问题做好了准备，唯独没准备这个。参议员艾米·克罗布彻（民主党-明尼苏达州）是个例外，她质疑一名处于防自杀监控下的人如何能上吊自杀。她还不得不向一些记者解释自己在说什么：“这是一起性贩运阴谋。”
When left-wing podcasters asked 2020 hopefuls if they’d probe the circumstances of the convicted sex offender’s death, a few looked rattled. They’d prepped for so many questions, but not this. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. was an exception, questioning how a man on suicide watch could hang himself. She also had to explain, for some reporters, what she was talking about: “This was a sex trafficking scheme.”
选民不再需要关于爱泼斯坦的背景介绍。民主党在本周期投放了数百则广告，将对手与这位名誉扫地的金融家联系起来，广告投入达数千万美元。我不是第一个质疑这是否是“爱泼斯坦大选”的评论员。我在这里是要回答为什么这一信息奏效。这是史上最昂贵的中期选举。我们见证了美国历史上单个人（埃隆·马斯克）为助选一名候选人（肯·帕克斯顿）而作出的最大额捐款。首次出现非大选年选举吸引的资金超过两年前总统大选的支出。
Voters no longer need refreshers on Epstein. Democrats have run hundreds of ads this cycle linking their opponents to the disgraced financier, worth tens of millions of dollars. I’m not the first take-slinger to ask whether this is the “Epstein election.”I’m here to answer with the reason why the message is working. This is the most expensive midterm election ever. We’ve witnessed the biggest donation in American history by one man (Elon Musk) to help one candidate (Ken Paxton). For the first time, off-year elections have attracted more cash than was spent to win the presidential race two years earlier.
超级富豪可以在竞选中无限额花钱，虽然许多候选人谴责这一点——“推翻”在任何民主党市民大会上都能博得喝彩——但没有严肃的努力去通过宪法修正案来压缩这种声音。这就是爱泼斯坦出场的地方。
The very wealthy can spend unlimited sums on campaigns, and while plenty of candidates denounce this — “overturn ” will thrill the audience at any Democratic town hall — there’s no serious effort to pass a constitutional amendment that would shrink that voice. That’s where Epstein comes in.
许多美国人倾向于认为富人是靠劳动赚来钱的，试图拿走他们的钱显得吝啬。但现在比以往更容易论证：一些超级富豪古怪、自私，甚至邪恶。共和党民调专家帕特里克·拉菲尼本周写道，民主党利用选民中的“阴谋论倾向和反体制倾向”，找到了一把砸向共和党锋利得多的武器。
Many Americans are predisposed to think that wealthy people earned their money and that it’s churlish to try to take it away from them. But it’s easier than ever to argue that some ultra-wealthy people are strange, selfish, and even evil. Democrats, the GOP pollster Patrick Ruffini wrote this week, exploited the “conspiratorial, anti-system tendencies in the electorate” and found a much sharper weapon to swing at Republicans.
如果民主党从中获益，加利福尼亚州众议员罗·卡纳（Ro Khanna）功不可没。作为2020年伯尼·桑德斯（Bernie Sanders）竞选活动的联合主席，他见证了这样一种表述对选民的澄清作用：亿万富翁囤积财富，而大多数民众却在挣扎求生。在唐纳德·特朗普总统承诺公开爱泼斯坦案卷宗却未兑现后，卡纳和肯塔基州共和党众议员托马斯·马西（Thomas Massie）去年凑齐票数，迫使其公开。
If this pays off for Democrats, serious credit will be due to California Rep. Ro Khanna. As a co-chair of the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign, he saw how clarifying it could be for audiences to hear that billionaires were hoarding wealth while most people struggled. After President Donald Trump promised to release Epstein case files but didn’t, Khanna and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., found the votes to force it last year.
这些卷宗并未推翻特朗普总统职位。但卡纳在对抗“爱泼斯坦阶层”的斗争中，找到了反亿万富翁民粹主义的叙事框架。“爱泼斯坦阶层已成为一个象征，象征着富人和权势者如何操纵体制以逃避问责、肥己肥人，”卡纳在为威斯康星州一席位的民主党挑战者助选时告诉我，特朗普曾在该选区以5个百分点的优势获胜。
The files didn’t take down the Trump presidency. But Khanna found a framework for anti-billionaire populism in battling the “Epstein class.”“The Epstein class has become a symbol [of] how the wealthy and powerful rig the system to avoid accountability and enrich themselves,” Khanna told me as he campaigned for the Democratic challenger in a Wisconsin seat Trump won by 5 points.
这一主题与民主党原本的意图不谋而合：将共和党描绘成超级富豪的棋子。为什么共和党要拖延数据中心建设？亿万富翁。为什么国会不降低普通民众的生活成本？亿万富翁。
This theme aligned with what Democrats wanted to do anyway: run against Republicans as pawns of the ultra-wealthy. Why wouldn’t the GOP slow data center construction? Billionaires. Why wasn’t Congress bringing down costs for regular people? Billionaires.
当特朗普出现在选票上时，选民认为他富得流油，其他亿万富翁无法施加影响，这反而帮了共和党的忙。民主党难以奏效针对米特·罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）的反寡头攻击，因为知名亿万富翁和企业界领袖拒绝支持特朗普。
When Trump was on the ballot, it helped Republicans that he was perceived as so wealthy that other billionaires couldn’t influence him. Democrats struggled to land the anti-plutocrat attacks that worked against Mitt Romney because prominent billionaires and corporate leaders refused to support Trump.
这种情况在特朗普去年重返白宫后发生了改变，民主党人再次对民粹主义感到自在。佐治亚州参议员乔恩·奥索夫从卡纳那里借用了“爱泼斯坦阶层”这一术语，并指出了他们在特朗普就职典礼上的身影：“他们就是那些他们假装痛恨的精英。”如果民主党在周二取得好成绩，他们敢于反对巨额财富、并暗示巨额财富本质上有某种邪恶，将被证明至关重要。
That changed after Trump returned to power last year, and Democrats got comfortable again with populism. Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who picked up the “Epstein class” term from Khanna, pointed to its presence at Trump’s inauguration: “They are the elites they pretend to hate.”If Democrats have a good Tuesday, their willingness to run against vast wealth and suggest that there’s something evil about it will have proven essential.
“如果你是亿万富翁，俄亥俄州看起来简直完美无瑕，”俄亥俄州的艾米·阿克顿在她的最后一批广告之一中说——这是她的盟友推出的几则广告之一，这些广告攻击共和党州长提名人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米乘坐私人飞机这一“罪行”。
“If you’re a billionaire, Ohio looks picture-perfect,” Ohio’s Amy Acton says in one of her final ads – one of several, from her allies, that go after GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy for the crime of flying a private jet.
当前总统贝拉克·奥巴马与阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德一同出席密歇根州集会并发表主旨演讲时，一名与会者向他高声回应表示赞同：“奥巴马也不在爱泼斯坦名单上！”埃尔-赛义德指着那名男子微笑，任由掌声持续响起。
And when former President Barack Obama headlined a Michigan rally with Abdul El-Sayed, an attendee shouted affirmation back at him: “Obama’s not on the Epstein files, either!”El-Sayed pointed and smiled at the man. He let the applause ring out.
存在分歧的空间 共和党人对此类攻击有一些实质性的反驳。总统难道没有游说其他亿万富翁为儿童投资账户提供资金吗？难道所有投资科技股的人不都变得更富有了吗？
Room for Disagreement Republicans have some substantive rebuttals to this line of attack. Hadn’t the president jawboned other billionaires into funding child investment accounts? Wasn’t everyone invested in tech stocks getting richer?
没有那些早已拥有巨资的人富有。事实上，反击“反亿万富翁”路线最有效的办法被证明是……将其用在民主党人身上。
Not as rich as the people who had money already. In fact, the best counter to the anti-billionaire line has proven to be … turning it on Democrats.
在威斯康星州及其他领英创始人里德·霍夫曼资助民主党超级政治行动委员会的地方，共和党人攻击霍夫曼与爱泼斯坦的交情，并质问为何民主党不退还他的钱。当阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德与索罗斯家族成员共同筹款时，共和党人称他在竞选途中的反金钱政治言论是个骗局。
In Wisconsin, and other places where LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman has funded Democratic PACs, Republicans attacked Hoffman’s friendship with Epstein and asked why Democrats weren’t giving back his money. When Abdul El-Sayed fundraised with members of the Soros family, Republicans said his campaign trail rhetoric about money in politics was a ruse.
值得关注 曾因爱泼斯坦文件发布中的删减内容起诉司法部的记者凯蒂·方在《卫报》上撰文，探讨其对选举的影响。
Notable Katie Phang, a journalist who’s sued DOJ over redactions in Epstein file releases, wrote in the Guardian about their impact on the elections.
《政客》的《行事历》专栏探讨了能否称此为“爱泼斯坦大选”，民主党策略师们对候选人采纳他们的“腐败”框架感到非常高兴。
Politico’s Playbook looked at whether you could call this the “Epstein election,” with Democratic strategists very happy that candidates adopted their “corruption” framing.