共和党是否已迷失方向？看他们把中期选举的赌注押在迎合民粹主义和两极化的狂怒上，不得不让人产生这种疑问。讨好选民对共和党在周二的选举中毫无助益，正如乔·拜登的学生贷款减免或“暂停”新液化天然气出口对民主党毫无助益一样。
Have Republicans lost the plot? You have to wonder by the way they have staked the midterms on appealing to populist and polarizing furies. Pandering won’t help Republicans this Tuesday any more than Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness or “pause” on new liquefied natural gas exports did Democrats.
佐证一是特朗普团队启用卫生与公众服务部部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪。这更多是为了推进肯尼迪长期以来反对疫苗和杀虫剂的意识形态十字军运动，而非为共和党赢取选票。
Exhibit A is the Trump team’s deployment of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This serves more to advance Mr. Kennedy’s longstanding ideological crusades against vaccines and pesticides than to win votes for Republicans.
“我们必须想办法在不毒害孩子、不让自己患癌的情况下种植食物，”肯尼迪上周在一场“让美国再次健康”（MAHA）集会上宣称，爱荷华州州长共和党提名人扎克·拉恩和第二国会选区提名人乔·米切尔也在场。拉恩沉声表示，向大型农业企业和公司宣战是一场“精神之战”。“长期以来，极少数人靠牺牲孩子们的健康发了大财。”
“We have to figure out a way to grow food without poisoning our kids, without giving ourselves cancer,” Mr. Kennedy declared at a MAHA rally last week with Zach Lahn and Joe Mitchell, Republican nominees for Iowa’s governor and Second Congressional District. Taking on Big Ag and corporations, Mr. Lahn intoned, is a “spiritual battle.”“For a long time, a select few have gotten very rich off the backs of the health of our children.”
这位继续在“山上布道”的拉恩主张将新冠疫苗撤出市场，并将其描述为“一项捍卫生命的使命”。新冠mRNA疫苗导致大规模死亡的说法毫无根据，在大多数选民听来简直荒诞。捍卫生命的爱荷华人恐怕不欣赏拉恩把堕胎与挽救生命的疫苗混为一谈。
Continuing his sermon on the mount, Mr. Lahn advocated removing Covid vaccines from the market, which he described as “a pro-life mission.”The notion that the Covid mRNA vaccines are causing mass death is baseless, and to most voters it sounds kooky. Pro-life Iowans probably don’t appreciate Mr. Lahn’s conflating abortion with life-saving vaccines.
在经济支柱是农业的州向农民宣战更是愚蠢至极。但这就是当下的共和党策略。其思路似乎是：候选人可以通过迎合民粹主义的固执偏见和不满情绪来获胜。
Waging a war against farmers in a state whose economic mainstay is agriculture is even dumber. But such is the Republican strategy these days. The thinking seems to be that candidates can win by appealing to populist hobby horses and grievances.
要了解这有多么错误，只需看看得克萨斯州共和党参议员提名人肯·帕克斯顿。这位得州总检察长试图通过针对牙膏制造商（氟化物）、谷物制造商（食用色素）和服装制造商（化学物质）等企业，来缓和“让美国再次健康”运动所关心的议题。
To understand how mistaken this is, look no further than Texas GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton. The Texas attorney general has tried to massage issues near and dear to the MAHA movement by targeting makers of toothpaste (for fluoride), cereal (food dyes) and clothing (chemicals), among other businesses.
“这个国家的企业削减成本的手段太过分了，我将继续追究它们的责任，”帕克斯顿上个月在一份新闻稿中宣布对汉尼斯和福特鲁姆展开调查时表示——请坐稳了——理由是儿童内衣中可能含有“有毒化学物质”。
“Too many corners have been cut by corporations in this country, and I will continue to hold them accountable,” Mr. Paxton said in a press release last month announcing an investigation into Hanes and Fruit of the Loom over—wait for it—potential “toxic chemicals” in children’s underwear.
也许帕克斯顿认为，将矛头指向企业能转移选民对其个人包袱的关注，其中包括由共和党主导的得克萨斯州众议院以腐败指控对他发起的弹劾。（参议院判定他无罪。）随着他加大反企业攻势，其民调支持率却在下滑。
Maybe Mr. Paxton thinks targeting business will distract voters from his personal baggage, including impeachment on corruption allegations by the GOP-led Texas House. (The Senate acquitted him.) As he has amped up his antibusiness campaign, his polling numbers have slid.
还有堪萨斯州共和党参议员罗杰·马歇尔，他试图利用民众对华尔街的愤怒，抨击大银行和信用卡公司是“高利贷者”。他支持将信用卡利率上限设为10%，并与伊利诺伊州民主党人迪克·德宾共同发起法案，监管信用卡支付网络。
Then there’s Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall, who has sought to tap into anger at Wall Street by assailing big banks and credit card companies as “loan sharks.”He has backed a 10% cap on credit-card interest rates and sponsored a bill with Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin to regulate credit-card payment networks.
最近的民调显示，这位现任参议员落后于民主党人亚当·汉密尔顿，而该州自1932年以来从未选出过民主党籍参议员，特朗普在2024年大选中更以16个百分点的优势赢下该州。原因之一是有报道称，马歇尔行医时曾因未付账单起诉患者，并收取高达18%的年利息。谁才是高利贷者？
Recent polls show the incumbent trailing Democrat Adam Hamilton in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932 and that Mr. Trump won by 16 points in 2024. One reason is reports that while practicing medicine, Mr. Marshall sued patients over unpaid bills and charged them annual interest up to 18%. Who’s the loan shark?
和腹地其他共和党人一样，马歇尔因特朗普的关税和移民突击检查而受损。征税进口商品在共和党选民的一个小圈子之外并不受欢迎。妖魔化并驱逐未犯罪的外籍工人也不受欢迎。
Like other Republicans in the heartland, Mr. Marshall has been hurt by the Trump tariffs and immigration raids. Taxing imports is unpopular beyond a thin slice of Republican voters. So is demonizing and deporting foreign workers who haven’t committed a crime.
副总统万斯上个月宣布了一系列行动，使技术移民更难合法在美国工作。他贬低这些移民为“契约仆人”。特朗普承诺修建一堵墙，墙上有一扇“大大的美丽的门”，那扇门去哪了？他的团队正在建的那扇门，只通往一个方向——出境。
Vice President JD Vance last month announced a suite of actions that make it harder for skilled immigrants to work legally in the U.S. He derided these immigrants as “indentured servants.”What happened to Mr. Trump’s pledge to build a wall with a “big beautiful door”? The door that his team is building goes only one way—out.
政府同样向一小撮孤立主义者示好，却毫无成效。本月初，特朗普以弗拉基米尔·普京同意增加柴油出口为条件，放宽了对俄罗斯的制裁。自该协议宣布以来，柴油价格每加仑上涨了15美分。人们不禁怀疑，讨好普京的真实目的是平息塔克·卡尔森等对政府外交干预的批评者。上周泄露的消息称，万斯正寻求重启与伊朗的和平谈判，也是出于同样的考虑。副总统不惜背叛乌克兰、损害美国在伊朗的核心利益，拼命寻求政府与孤立主义者的和解。
The administration has similarly appealed to a rump faction of isolationists to no good effect. Earlier this month, Mr. Trump eased sanctions on Russia in return for Vladimir Putin’s agreement to boost diesel exports. Diesel prices have increased by 15 cents a gallon since the deal was announced. One suspects the real goal of cozying up to Mr. Putin was to quell critics of the administration’s foreign interventions, like Tucker Carlson. So, too, with leaks last week that Mr. Vance is seeking to revive peace negotiations with Iran. The vice president desperately seeks a rapprochement between the administration and isolationists, at the cost of betraying Ukraine and undermining U.S. imperatives in Iran.
这正是共和党面临中期选举困境的根源：共和党为了讨好他们自以为重要的喧嚣利益集团和影响者，已不再关心普通选民真正在乎什么。拜登团队在试图笼络对通胀愤怒的年轻选民时，犯了同样的错误。赢得多数席位的途径，不是迎合各个分散的派系，而是推动促进广泛繁荣的政策。[视频] 《华尔街日报》观点：民主党拥抱左派
Herein lies the root of the GOP’s midterm problem: Republicans have lost sight of what ordinary voters care about in their bid to buy favor with vocal interest groups and influencers they imagine are important. The Biden team made the same mistake as it tried to woo young voters angry about inflation. The way to win a majority isn’t to appeal to disparate factions, but to advance policies that promote broad-based prosperity. [video] WSJ Opinion: Democrats Embrace the Left