现代政治史上，几乎很少有哪个最后的竞选论点像唐纳德·特朗普在下周中期选举前向同僚共和党人提出的那样，显得如此与现实脱节、自挫其锋芒，甚至是彻头彻尾的怪异。1980年，当罗纳德·里根告诉选民审视吉米·卡特的总统任期并自问“你们过得比四年前好吗？”时，这帮助一场势均力敌的竞选变成了里根的压倒性胜利。
Modern political history offers few examples of closing arguments that appear more out of touch, self-defeating, or downright bizarre than what Donald Trump has offered his fellow Republicans ahead of next week’s midterm elections. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan told voters to consider Jimmy Carter’s presidency and to ask themselves, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?,” it helped turn a tight race into a Reagan landslide.
但许多冲刺阶段的信息被证明深为无效，且很快被遗忘。在1998年中期选举前，共和党人全力投入导致总统比尔·克林顿弹劾案的调查，结果却遭到选民的唾弃。奥巴马总统在2010年坚称国家正在走出金融危机，导致其所在的政党遭遇了一场“惨败”。而在2018年中期选举期间，特朗普和他的共和党同僚试图煽动人们对据称正朝美国开进的移民大篷车队的恐惧，结果却让持怀疑态度的选民将众议院交给了民主党。
But many stretch-run messages prove deeply ineffective, and are quickly forgotten. Ahead of the 1998 midterms, Republicans went all in on investigations that led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton only to be rebuked by voters. President Obama’s insistence in 2010 that the country was coming out of the financial crisis led to his party enduring a “shellacking.”And during the 2018 midterms, Trump and his fellow Republicans tried to stoke fears about an alleged caravan of migrants headed towards the United States, only to have skeptical voters hand the House of Representatives to Democrats.
这一次，据我所能看出的，特朗普关于选民为何应该支持共和党的主要理由是：可负担性危机是个“骗局”，比尔·马赫是个“失败者”，而俄亥俄州参议员乔恩·哈斯特斯身材很好。这个容易遭到嘲笑的信息还伴随着数量惊人的失误。仅举几例，他贬低了自己陷入停滞的对伊朗战争的影响，在俄罗斯继续轰炸乌克兰城市之际站在俄方一边，为俄亥俄州长共和党候选人的一则令其他高层共和党人感到反感的攻击性广告辩护，淡化高能源价格的同时却吹嘘美国石油和天然气公司正在“发大财”，在国家转而反对人工智能之际拥抱人工智能，对白宫建设工程魂牵梦绕，并花大量时间谈论长相英俊的男子——哈斯特斯只是其中之一。
This time around, Trump’s primary rationale for why voters should support the GOP, as best I can tell, is that the affordability crisis is a “hoax,” Bill Maher is a “loser,” and Senator Jon Husted of Ohio has a nice physique. That easy-to-mock message has been accompanied by a staggering number of missteps. Just for starters, he’s belittled the impact of his stalled war with Iran, sided with Russia as it continues to pummel Ukrainian cities, defended an attack ad from the GOP candidate for Ohio governor that repulsed other top Republicans, downplayed high energy prices while boasting that U.S. oil and gas companies are “making a freaking fortune,” embraced AI as the nation turns against it, obsessed over White House construction projects, and spent a of time talking about handsome men, Husted being just one.
许多共和党人，甚至包括特朗普身边的某些人，也并不完全理解这一点。他们问道，这个曾缔造美国政治史上两次最不可思议胜利的人，其直觉究竟怎么了？特朗普的超能力曾是他对支持者动机的直观理解。许多共和党人私下对我说，他已经失去了那种感觉。他们认为，特朗普现在生活在一个镀金的泡沫之中，与亿万金主厮混，对许多选民面临的问题视而不见——更糟糕的是，漠不关心。
Many Republicans, and even some in Trump’s orbit, don’t quite get it. What has happened, they ask, to the instincts of the man who authored two of the most improbable victories in American political history? Trump’s superpower was his intuitive understanding of what motivated his supporters. Many Republicans privately tell me that he’s lost that feel. Trump now lives, they think, in a gilded bubble, palling around with billionaires, oblivious to—and, even worse, uncaring about—the problems facing so many voters.
他的支持率已跌至百分之三十出头。他变得如此令人反感，以至于一些选情胶着的共和党人不希望他靠近自己所在的州或国会选区，他们认为他的集会只会带来损害而非帮助。
His approval rating has slipped to the low 30s. He’s become so toxic that some Republicans in tight races don’t want him anywhere near their states or congressional districts, believing his rallies will harm more than help.
两党的战略家都预计民主党将掌控众议院，而参议院则胜负难料——这与今年初的情况形成了惊人的逆转，当时参议院的版图对共和党极其有利，特朗普也展现出主导地位。转瞬间，共和党人发现自己竟然要在深红州为保住参议院席位而战：堪萨斯州、阿拉斯加州、南卡罗来纳州、俄亥俄州、艾奥瓦州、密西西比州和得克萨斯州。
Strategists in both parties expect Democrats to take control of the House, while the Senate is a true toss-up—a stunning reversal from the beginning of the year, when the upper chamber’s map looked so favorable for Republicans, and Trump cut a dominant figure. Suddenly, Republicans find themselves fighting to keep Senate seats in deep-red states: Kansas. Alaska. South Carolina. Ohio. Iowa. Mississippi. Texas.
特朗普正在全国各地奔走拉票，恳求支持者最后一次为他投票。但他几乎没有给共和党人提供任何可以用来竞选的纲领，民调显示，选民认为他的经济政策正在失败，他的驱逐出境计划走得太远，他的战争是误入歧途。相反，他极力借助过去的政治争端，炒作对变性手术（来自他2024年的竞选）、穆斯林恐怖分子（甚至可以追溯到2016年）乃至共产主义的恐惧。
Trump is campaigning across the country, imploring his supporters to turn out for him one last time. But he’s given Republicans next to nothing to run on, and polls show that voters believe his economic policies are failing, his deportation program has gone too far, and his war is misguided. He instead has leaned hard on the political battles of the past, reheating fears about transgender surgeries (from his 2024 campaign), Muslim terrorists (all the way back to 2016), and even communism. (The guy does have a fondness for the ’80s.)
（这家伙确实对80年代情有独钟。）不仅如此，特朗普的司法部第三次指控前联邦调查局局长詹姆斯·科米——前两次指控未能成立——因为没有什么比试图重启针对一个政敌的、日渐式微的报复运动更能说明你与选民的日常关切合拍了，而他的政府曾因一张贝壳的照片而将该政敌作为目标。
For good measure, Trump’s Department of Justice charged the former FBI director James Comey for a third time—the first two didn’t stick—because nothing screams being in tune with the everyday concerns of voters than trying to revive a faltering retribution campaign against a political foe your administration once targeted over a photograph of seashells.
一位谋求连任、但仅肯在匿名条件下同我交谈以免疏远总统的共和党人言简意赅地指出：“我们在这里可能搞错了重点。”不久前，这位总统还在抛掷写有“特朗普2028”的帽子，而民主党人则惊恐万状，担心他可能强大到足以无视宪法。但那顶头饰现在看起来已经过时了，宣称“特朗普对一切都看对了！”的系列服饰也是如此。许多共和党人告诉我，在距离选举仅剩几天之际，他们党派面临的最大问题是选民觉得特朗普并没有兑现他的核心承诺。
One Republican up for reelection who would speak with me only on the condition of anonymity, so as not to alienate the president, put it succinctly: “We may have lost the plot here.”Not that long ago, the president was tossing Trump 2028 hats around, and Democrats were freaking out that he might be powerful enough to defy the Constitution. But that headgear now seems dated, as does the apparel line trumpeting that Trump Was Right About Everything! Many Republicans tell me that their party’s biggest problem just days from the election is that voters feel like Trump hasn’t kept his core promises.
不，伊朗出现了一场新危机，这推高了油价，并耗尽了美国的军火库存。此外，特朗普在乌克兰冲突中似乎站在了俄罗斯一边——他曾承诺在24小时内结束这场冲突。然而，中东战争让这变得不可能，特朗普杂乱无章的贸易战也是如此，其中包括对加拿大和欧盟等曾是的友好贸易伙伴加征关税。正当许多美国人艰难挣扎之际，特朗普及其家人的财富却在呈指数级增长。
Nope, there’s a new one in Iran that’s sent gas prices up and depleted the U.S. munitions supply. Plus, Trump has appeared to side with Russia over Ukraine in a conflict he once promised to end in 24 hours. Well, the war in the Middle East has made that impossible, as have Trump’s haphazard trade wars, including tariffs on once-friendly trading partners such as Canada and the European Union. And while many Americans are struggling, Trump and his family are growing exponentially wealthier.
特朗普的大规模搜捕行动不仅针对暴力罪 criminals 或帮派成员，还针对长期以来的社区成员、邻居、教友、队友以及没有犯罪记录的朋友。蒙面联邦特工发起的暴力行动让许多美国人感到惊恐，尤其是明尼阿波利斯街头两名美国公民被杀事件。
Trump’s massive roundups aren’t targeting just violent criminals or gang members, but also longtime community members, neighbors, parishioners, teammates, and friends with no criminal records. Many Americans have been horrified by the violence unleashed by masked federal agents, especially the killing of two U.S. citizens in the streets of Minneapolis.
特朗普在竞选集会上想要把注意力集中在这些落空承诺之外的事情上，这或许并不令人意外。在周一于密西西比州科林斯举行的集会上，他花了七分钟——几乎占其整个演讲的百分之十——来讨论他重新装修白宫的努力。
That Trump wants to focus on anything other than these broken promises while out on the campaign trail is perhaps unsurprising. At his Monday rally in Corinth, Mississippi, he spent seven minutes—nearly 10 percent of his entire speech—discussing his efforts to redecorate the White House.
前一天——特朗普前往密歇根州波特休伦参加集会时——这位总统的谈话要点包括：指责拜登总统对乌克兰战争负责；虚假声称通过霍尔木兹海峡的石油比战争前更多；将挪威称为“粪坑国家”；五次称该州民主党参议员提名人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德为圣战分子；声称如果埃尔-赛义德当选，他将成为唯一一位上班必须经过金属探测器的参议员；将投票反对埃尔-赛义德比作阻止一场致命恐怖袭击；请求特立尼达裔说唱歌手妮琪·米娜站在数千名支持者面前，以便他们欣赏她的臀部；以及赞扬（还有谁？）
The day before—when Trump traveled to a rally in Port Huron, Michigan—the president’s talking points included faulting President Biden for the war in Ukraine; falsely claiming that more oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz than before the war; deeming Norway a “shithouse country”; calling Abdul El-Sayed, the state’s Democratic nominee for Senate, a jihadist (five times); saying that, should he win, El-Sayed will be the only senator who must go through a metal detector to get to work; comparing a vote against El-Sayed to stopping a deadly terror attack; asking the Trinidadian rapper Nicki Minaj to stand before thousands of his supporters so that they could appreciate her butt; and lauding the boulder-like shoulders, thick fingers, massive feet, and firm backside of (who else?)
赫斯特德那巨石般的肩膀、粗壮的手指、巨大的脚和结实的臀部，赫斯特德是他在另一个州参议员竞选中支持的候选人。那天，他花了三分半钟谈论赫斯特德的橄榄球生涯，比他谈论这位立法者的政策多了整整三分半钟。
Husted, his preferred candidate for Senate in a different state. Over the course of that day, he spent three and a half minutes talking about Husted’s football career, which is three and a half minutes more than he talked about the lawmaker’s policies.
特朗普周日晚间在社交媒体上发布了一篇超过1300字的长文（这是他有史以来最长的Truth Social帖子），抨击马赫忘恩负义，此前总统曾在白宫宴请这位喜剧演员和脱口秀主持人共进晚餐，此举非但没有消除他已忽视选民真正关心之事的印象，反而强化了这一印象。总统还对奥巴马周末称特朗普新的白宫装饰“看起来像萨达姆·侯赛因开了一家芝士蛋糕工厂”大发雷霆。就在昨天，特朗普多次愤怒地抱怨这一嘲讽。
Rather than dispel the notion that he has lost sight of what actually matters to voters, Trump on Sunday night released a social-media screed of more than 1,300 words (his longest Truth Social post ever) that assailed Maher for being ungrateful after the president hosted the comedian and talk-show host at the White House for dinner. The president has also fumed that Obama said over the weekend that Trump’s new White House decor is “looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”Trump angrily complained about the dig multiple times just yesterday.
特朗普还发现自己站在了当日最热门议题的错误一边。他几乎不放过任何嘲讽“负担能力危机”的机会。共和党和民主党人都迅速将矛头转向人工智能，抨击该行业的数据中心噪音大、成本高，并警告选民，这项快速发展的技术可能夺走他们的工作，甚至夺走他们的生命。然而特朗普拒绝监管人工智能，因为他知道该行业正在支撑股市。
Trump has also found himself on the wrong side of the day’s top issues. He misses few chances to mock the affordability crisis. Republicans and Democrats alike have swiftly turned on artificial intelligence, blasting the industry’s data centers as loud and expensive, and warning voters that the rapidly developing technology could take away their jobs or even their lives. Yet Trump has refused to regulate AI, knowing that the industry is propping up the stock market.
他唯一表现出的“求变”姿态，是试图将其改名为“超级智能”。上周，特朗普高调支持了俄亥俄州州长共和党候选人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米竞选团队一则颇具争议的广告。该视频请来了民主党候选人艾米·阿克顿关系疏远的母亲唐娜·阿瑟，后者指控女儿在自己的过往经历上撒谎。视频并未提及，在候选人的继父因猥亵她而被起诉后，这两位女性已数十年没有说过话。
His only nod toward change is trying to rename it “Super Intelligence.”Last week, Trump loudly supported a controversial ad from the campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for Ohio governor. The video features the estranged mother of Democratic nominee Amy Acton, Donna Arthur, who accuses her daughter of lying about her past. It doesn’t mention that the two women have not spoken for decades, after the candidate’s stepfather was indicted for molesting her.
此举引发了激烈的两党共同反弹；该州现任共和党州长迈克·德温谴责了这则广告，并要求将其撤下。特朗普不仅表示支持，还敦促拉马斯瓦米为这样的政治好运“感谢上帝，非常感谢”。无论是否有神明相助，几位共和党策略师认为，这则广告可能葬送拉马斯瓦米。
The backlash was fierce and bipartisan; the state’s current Republican governor, Mike DeWine, denounced the ad and demanded that it be pulled. Trump not only supported it but also urged Ramaswamy to “say thank you, God, very much” for such political good fortune. Divine intervention or not, several GOP strategists believe the ad could doom Ramaswamy.
一些身处激烈选战的共和党候选人——缅因州的苏珊·柯林斯、新罕布什尔州的约翰·苏努努——已向白宫传话，表示不欢迎特朗普与他们同台助选。总统反而被派往深红州，希望动员足够多的铁杆支持者出来投票，以避免失去原本稳操胜券的参议院席位。
Some GOP candidates in tight races—Susan Collins in Maine, John Sununu in New Hampshire—have sent word to the White House that Trump isn’t welcome to campaign alongside them. The president has instead been dispatched to deep-red states with the hopes of turning out enough of his die-hard supporters to avoid losing once-safe Senate seats.
白宫发言人奥利维亚·威尔斯在一份声明中向我坚称，特朗普依然保持专注，同时“以无与伦比的精力和热情纵横全国，传递一个简单的信息：只要共和党控制国会，美国人就能期待更安全的街道、更低的税收、更有保障的边境以及能源主导地位”。
Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, insisted to me in a statement that Trump is remaining focused while “crisscrossing the country with unmatched energy and enthusiasm to deliver a simple message: with Republicans in control of Congress, Americans can expect safer streets, lower taxes, a secure border, and energy dominance.”
最令人大跌眼镜的“十月惊奇”一直是特朗普对男性体型的直言不讳且颇为色情的评价。他的动机仍然是个谜，但总统身边的一些人有各种推测。一位与总统关系密切的外部顾问告诉我，这一切始于两周前特朗普为休斯德助选时，首次得知这位参议员在20世纪80年代末曾打过大学橄榄球。特朗普对此印象深刻，并在接下来的几天里开始公开琢磨休斯德的体格，甚至宣称这位参议员的“屁股就像一堆肌肉”。
The most eyebrow-raising October Surprise has been Trump’s unfiltered and rather randy assessments of the male form. His motivations remain a mystery, but some in the president’s circle have theories. One outside adviser who is close to the president told me that it began when Trump, while rallying for Husted two weeks ago, was first told that the senator had played college football in the late ’80s. Trump was impressed and began publicly ruminating over the next few days about Husted’s physique, including declaring that the senator’s “ass is like a pile of muscle.”
这种赞赏很快成为社交媒体和有线电视节目热议的话题，其中一些节目重新翻出了特朗普赞美特工、将军以及纽约巨人队四分卫长相俊美的视频片段。所有这一切引发了关于这位80岁总统的嬉笑议论。但特朗普一直对无论男女的外表都极为关注，长期以来一直基于希望外表出自“中央选角”的标准来做出录用决定。正如那位顾问向我指出的那样，特朗普在公众视线中度过了几十年，一直对自己在电视上的肤色或发型着迷；他对自己的外表投入了大量思考，因此他会去想别人的外表如何，也就不足为奇了。
That admiration quickly became a subject of interest on social media and cable shows, some of which resurfaced clips of Trump praising the good looks of Secret Service agents, generals, and a quarterback for the New York Giants. All of that prompted amused chatter about the 80-year-old president. But Trump has always been keenly interested in appearances, female or male, and has long made hiring decisions based on wanting looks out of “central casting.”As that adviser noted to me, Trump has spent decades in the public eye, obsessing about how his tan or hair looked on television; he’s given a lot of thought to his own appearance, so it’s not surprising that he’d think about how others look, too.
让特朗普身边许多人感到更惊讶的是，他表达这些想法竟然如此毫无顾忌。任何过滤机制似乎早已荡然无存。不过，或许还有更简单的解释：一旦赫斯特德的言论在网络上疯传，特朗普的集会人群便开始期待这些台词，并跟着一起大笑，这强化了总统的感觉，即这些素材很管用。而且，特朗普宁愿谈论几乎任何其他话题——哪怕是赫斯特德的屁股——也不愿谈论汽油价格。
What is more surprising to many around Trump is just how freely he is expressing those thoughts. Any filter appears to be long gone. Then again, there may be simpler explanations: Once the Husted comments went viral, Trump’s rally crowds have come to expect the lines and have begun to laugh along, reinforcing the president’s sense that the material is working. And Trump would rather discuss almost anything besides the price of gas—even Husted’s posterior.