我们被告知这将是一场社会主义浪潮。诚然，随着阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德（Abdul El-Sayed）在密歇根州获胜，这位极左翼人士在击败共和党人和温和派民主党人方面取得了令人震惊的胜利。但是，尽管更多极左翼民主党人（包括估计五名美国民主社会主义者协会成员）将于一月份前往华盛顿，准备大声疾呼并制造麻烦，该党昨晚令人瞩目的巨大成功主要还是在没有美国民主社会主义者协会和极端主义边缘派支持的情况下取得的。
re told that this would be a socialist wave. And it is true that, with his victory in Michigan, the hard-Left Abdul El-Sayed has scored a shocking win against both the Republicans and moderate Democrats. But while more far-Left Democrats (including an estimated five members of the Democratic Socialists of America) will head to Washington in January ready to make noise and cause trouble, the party’s staggering successes last night were mostly in spite of the DSA and the extremist fringe.
民主党人在南方的重大胜利是由中间派的建制派候选人取得的。凯莎·兰斯·博托姆斯（Keisha Lance Bottoms）将成为佐治亚州首位非裔女性州长，而安妮·安德鲁斯（Annie Andrews）和詹姆斯·塔拉里科（James Talarico）则分别颠覆了美国两个最稳固的共和党州（南卡罗来纳州和得克萨斯州），他们靠的不是高喊“种族灭绝”或威胁要终结财产所有权，而是将焦点放在基本问题上——不断上升的生活成本、对伊朗战争、联邦移民政策过度干预，以及人人都坚称是美国问题幕后黑手的华盛顿那个人。
The big Democratic wins in the South were by centrist, establishment candidates. Keisha Lance Bottoms will become Georgia’s first Black female governor, while Annie Andrews and James Talarico have flipped two of America’s most reliably Republican states (South Carolina and Texas respectively) not by screaming “genocide” or threatening to end property ownership, but by keeping the focus on the basics – rising costs, the war in Iran, federal immigration overreach and the man in Washington everyone insists is behind America’s problems.
换句话说，民主党人已经表明他们可以从中间路线赢得胜利——尽管所有的注意力都集中在那些从极左翼大肆说教的人身上。
In other words, the Democrats have shown they can win from the centre – even if all the attention has been on those who preach from the far Left.
并不是说左翼会接受这个教训。纽约市长兼党内“造王者”佐赫兰·马姆达尼（Zohran Mamdani）将加码那些花哨的噱头，比如他威胁要逮捕以色列总理本杰明·内塔尼亚胡。亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯（Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez）将把特朗普的受挫视为在2028年竞选总统的鼓励。在过去一年里主导了该党的话语权后，美国民主社会主义者协会及其极左翼代理人会认为他们已通过期中选举获得了合法性——即使他们的许多实际候选人并未成功。
Not that the Left will accept this lesson. New York City mayor – and party “kingmaker” – Zohran Mamdani will ratchet up the gimmicky stunts, like his threat to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will take Trump’s humbling as an encouragement to run for president in 2028. Having dominated the party’s storytelling for the past year, the DSA and its far-Left surrogates will think they have been legitimised by the midterms – even if many of their actual candidates did not succeed.
他们将从密歇根州民主党参议员候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德的胜利中获得特别的鼓舞，尽管他本人并不是美国民主社会主义者协会的成员。
They will take particular encouragement from the victory of Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate from Michigan, even if he is himself not a member of the DSA.
但即使在密歇根州，左翼也面临风险。埃尔赛德的竞选活动大部分集中在反驳反犹主义指控上，因此他现在将受到严密审查，以证明批评者的错误。虽然他可能会让反犹主义者和伊斯兰主义者围绕自己，但如果他想避免广泛的“买家后悔”，就必须避免陷入仇恨的深渊。密歇根州可能已转向左翼，但它不是纽约市。
But even in Michigan there are risks for the Left. So much of El-Sayed’s campaign was centred around defending against accusations of anti-Semitism that he will now be under intense scrutiny to prove his critics wrong. While he may surround himself with anti-Zionists and Islamists, he will need to refrain from falling too far down the hatred rabbit hole if he wants to avoid wide-scale buyers’ remorse. Michigan might have moved to the Left, but it’s not New York City.
因此，周二的中期选举大体上让民主社会主义者和极左派保持了前一晚的状态：过度伸张、表现不佳，是一个非常大的房间里最响亮的声音，而这个房间大多由更强大、说话更温和的中间偏左民主党人掌控。
So Tuesday’s midterms mostly left the DSA and the far Left where they were the night before: overreaching, under-performing, the loudest voices in a very large room that is mostly run by far more powerful – and softer-speaking – centre-Left Democrats.
民主社会主义者及其同类会要求在民主党所谓的“大帐篷”中占有一席之地。但该党的温和派应当清楚谁才是真正的掌权者。否则，他们可能会发现极左派会把那个帐篷烧掉。
The DSA and their ilk will demand their seat at the table in the proverbial Democratic “big tent”. But the party’s moderates should be clear about who is really in charge. Otherwise they may find that the far Left burns that tent down.