在室内，起初狂欢者们情绪高昂。时间还早，蓝色浪潮的兴起尚未引发恐惧——至少在一定程度上如此。一名在吧台等酒的男子盯着佛罗里达州的开票结果，那是共和党为数不多的亮点之一。当得知参议员候选人肯·帕克斯顿和现任州长格雷格·阿博特在得克萨斯州大势已去时，他夸张地抱住了头。“哦我的天！我刚到。我得回家。”他痛苦地盯着手机。
Inside, at first, revelers were upbeat. It was early enough that the rising of the blue tide had yet to inspire fear—to an extent. A man waiting for drinks at the bar monitored the results in Florida, one of the few bright spots for Republicans. When informed that Senate candidate Ken Paxton and incumbent governor Greg Abbott were down bad in Texas, he clutched his head dramatically. “Oh my God! I just got here. I need to go home.”He looked at his phone in anguish.
几分钟内，他冲向了大门。一名戴着红帽子的白宫工作人员在人群中穿梭，帽子侧面绣着“45/47”，正面绣着“WINNING”。“乐观？我早些时候乐观得多，”他说，“如果我们输了得州，那就是一场灾难。”几分钟后，Decision Desk 宣布得克萨斯州由詹姆斯·塔拉里科赢得，他是自 1988 年以来首位当选参议员的得州民主党人。
Within minutes, he darted for the door. A White House staffer wearing a red hat emblazoned with “45/47” on the side and “WINNING” on the front made the rounds. “Optimistic? I was a lot more earlier,” he said. “If we lose Texas it’s a catastrophe.”Minutes later, Decision Desk called Texas for James Talarico, the first Democrat to be elected to the Senate in the Lone Star State since 1988.
随着艾拉·兰利的《Choosin’ Texas》从音响里震天响起，吧台旁的两名男子感叹这首歌在此刻响起的残酷讽刺，因为塔拉里科对共和党挑战者肯·帕克斯顿的舒适领先优势正在不断扩大。
As Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” blared through the speakers, two men at the bar lamented the cruel irony of the song playing as Talarico’s comfortable lead expanded over Ken Paxton, his Republican challenger.
“我们不是想要彻底崩盘，”其中一名男子、该党的一位共和党组织者说道。“但我们提名了一个患有唐氏综合症的希特勒。猜怎么着？！他输了！他输了！现在我们还失去了一位最高法院大法官。这简直是一场他妈的灾难。”
“I’m not trying to crash out,” said one of the men, a Republican organizer of the party. “But we nominated Hitler with Down syndrome. And guess what?! He lost! He lost! And now we lose a Supreme Court Justice. It is a fucking disaster.”
这确实是一场他妈的灾难。共和党几乎输掉了所有关键的参议院席位，佛罗里达州那点微薄的安慰奖很快就被南卡罗来纳州的惨败冲刷殆尽。特朗普在整个选举期间对选民说：“假装我在选票上。”按所有衡量标准，选民真的这么做了。晚上10点40分，特朗普对当晚给出了他的定论：“我不在选票上，如果我在，我们会大获全胜！感谢你们对此事的关注。”
It was a fucking disaster indeed. Republicans lost almost every Senate seat that mattered, with the small consolation of Florida quickly washed away by the titanic loss of South Carolina. Trump had spent the election telling voters, “Pretend that I’m on the ballot.”By all measures, they had. By 10:40 p.m., Trump offered his verdict on the night: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
共和党的惨败，特朗普只能怪自己。定义他第二任期的行政决策，简直像是在“抵抗运动”实验室里炮制出来、专门用来疏远绝大多数美国人、瓦解其政治事业的。他在中期选举中力挺、违背共和党建制派意愿的候选人，输得最惨。已故参议员林赛·格雷厄姆的妹妹、政治新人达琳·格雷厄姆在南卡罗来纳州败给了民主党人安妮·安德鲁斯。
Trump only has himself to blame for the Republican wipeout. The executive decisions that have defined his second administration were like something cooked up in #Resistance laboratories to alienate the vast majority of Americans from his political project. The candidates he backed in these midterm elections, against the wishes of the Republican establishment, are those that wiped out the hardest. Darline Graham, the political neophyte sister of the late senator Lindsey Graham, lost to Democrat Annie Andrews in South Carolina.
德克萨斯州检察长帕克斯顿深陷丑闻，特朗普在初选中支持他挑战现任参议员约翰·科宁，结果他在大选中败给了年轻的民主党人詹姆斯·塔拉里科。
Paxton, the scandal-plagued Texas attorney general whom Trump backed in the primary against incumbent senator John Cornyn, lost to young Democrat James Talarico.
“我们被彻底击溃了，彻底，”一位接近特朗普的消息人士发短信告诉我。“他不再是造王者了，或者至少他不再是他自以为仍是的造王者了。这是一场针对他的公投。”
“We got SMOKED. BIGLY,” one source close to Trump texted me. “He’s not the kingmaker he was, or still thinks he is. This is a referendum on him.”
这列碾压特朗普和共和党的列车早已在轨道上疾驰了一段时间。无人能声称自己是被突袭的。历史上从未有过一个政党如此无助地将自己捆绑在一个人身上，更不用说这样一位历史上极其不得人心的人了。去年12月，《华盛顿邮报》报道，副总统万斯邀请一位保守派民调专家前往白宫，向总统传达一个紧急信息：美国人感觉不到你在为他们而战，拉斯穆森报告的马克·米切尔在特朗普吃蟹肉饼午餐时解释道。米切尔敦促他专注于“务实的经济民粹主义”这一信息。
The train that flattened Trump and Republicans this year had been barreling down the track for some time. No one could claim to be blindsided. Never in history has a party tethered itself so helplessly to one man, much less such a historically unpopular one. In December of last year, The Washington Post reported that Vice President JD Vance invited a conservative pollster to the White House to deliver an urgent message to the president: Americans don’t feel like you are fighting for them, Mark Mitchell of Rasmussen Reports explained as Trump ate a crab cake lunch. Mitchell urged him to focus on a message of “pragmatic economic populism.”
特朗普无视了这一切。会议结束后不久，他发动了一场针对伊朗的战争，引发全球能源冲击，据一项研究估计，这让美国普通家庭损失了2000美元。“伊朗战争至少是过去二十年来最大的政治失误，”亲特朗普评论员马特·沃尔什在X上写道。“一个灾难性的愚蠢决定。对‘美国优先’原则的不可饶恕的背叛。”在他称为“解放日”的灾难发生一年后，特朗普又炮制了一个新阴谋，要让美国人从经济安全中“解放”出来：一场升级的对加贸易战，重创了共和党为守住参议院控制权所需的中西部上游各州。
Trump ignored all that. Soon after the meeting, he started a war with Iran that triggered a global energy shock and by one study’s estimate has cost the average American household $2,000. “The Iran War is the greatest political blunder in the last two decades at least,” pro-Trump pundit Matt Walsh wrote on X. “A catastrophically stupid decision. An unforgivable betrayal of America First principles.”A year after the calamity he dubbed “Liberation Day,” Trump conjured up a new plot to liberate Americans from economic security: An escalated trade war with Canada that battered states in the upper Midwest that Republicans needed to hold the Senate.
在此期间，总统在公开声明中无视对生活成本的担忧。他将“负担能力”称为骗局，却执着于奢华的翻修项目，比如耗资6亿美元的舞厅和林肯纪念堂倒影池那场混乱的翻修工程。
All the while, the president dismissed concerns about the cost of living in his public statements. He referred to “affordability” as a hoax, and fixated on lavish renovation projects, like the $600 million ballroom and the messy renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
游泳池这件事，竟成了特朗普收官论点的定海神针。周一在那里举行的新闻发布会上，特朗普花了20多分钟向记者们大讲他夏天与藻类作战的“战绩”。“这是全新安装的管道，管道对于藻类和其他问题非常重要，”他板着脸说，挥舞着一块贴有泳池底部照片的展板。第二天，汽油和柴油价格创下历史最高全国均价。总统的支持率稳稳停在历史最低点。“我觉得特朗普不在乎，”一位接近特朗普的消息人士说。
The pool, of all things, ended up anchoring Trump’s closing argument. In a press conference held there on Monday, Trump spent more than 20 minutes regaling reporters with war stories from his summer campaign against algae. “They’re brand-new pipes put in, and the pipes being very important in terms of the algae and other things,” he said sternly, brandishing a poster board with photos of the pool base. The next day, gasoline and diesel prices hit their highest national average in history. The president’s approval ratings sat firmly at a record bottom. “I don’t think Trump cares,” said the source close to Trump.
白宫对这些选举的说法是，特朗普已竭尽全力帮助党派，在选举日前夕举办了一连串集会，并动用其庞大的“让美国再次伟大公司”（MAGA Inc.）竞选资金库中的3.5亿多美元助选共和党候选人。这笔钱或许有帮助，但集会是否奏效尚不清楚。特朗普的不受欢迎程度已达地震级，且越来越多人感觉，他在主导美国人核心关注点长达十年后，其运动正在逐渐熄火。
The White House line on these elections is that Trump did all he could to help the party, holding a blitz of rallies in the run-up to Election Day and deploying more than $350 million of his sizable MAGA Inc. war chest to boost Republican candidates. The money might have helped, but it isn’t clear that the rallying did. Trump’s unpopularity is now seismic, and there’s a growing feeling that his movement is, after a decade of dominating the frontal lobe of the American mind, petering out.
即使总统向每个美国人提出极其慷慨的承诺——如果共和党控制国会两院，每人发5000美元——也似乎没能动摇我们这个格外贪财的民众。根据一项民调，71%的美国人表示不相信他们能拿到这笔钱。
Even the president’s very generous offer to every American—$5,000 each if Republicans held both chambers of Congress—didn’t seem to sway our particularly plutomanic populace. Seventy-one percent of Americans, according to one poll, said they didn’t believe they would ever receive the money.
特朗普在年轻男性这一关键投票群体中的支持率暴跌，而面向年轻受众的热门播客主播们已抛弃了他。CNN选举日的出口民调显示，民主党在年轻白人男性中领先17个百分点，而两年前特朗普曾在同一群体中领先28个百分点。“我们都得搬去佛罗里达了，”巴特沃斯酒吧里一位垂头丧气的年轻共和党人说，他的领带上印满了大象图案。“这是场灾难。”多加·卡特（Doja Cat）的《Paint the Town Red》正震耳欲聋地播放着。
Trump’s approval among young men, a key voting bloc that ensured his return to power, has plummeted, and popular podcasters who cater to a younger audience have abandoned him. CNN’s exit poll on Election Day found Democrats won young white men by 17 points, two years after Trump won the same group by 28 points. “We all have to move to Florida,” said a dejected young Republican wearing a tie covered in elephants at Butterworth’s. “It’s a disaster.”Doja Cat’s “Paint the Town Red” was blasting.
大约20分钟车程以北，在Metrobar酒吧，几百名民主党人在花园里举行胜利派对。我刚下出租车，就听到人群的欢呼声。NBC新闻刚刚宣布，民主党赢得了参议院。当史蒂夫·科纳基在酒吧花园竖起的大屏幕上解读俄亥俄州的选举结果时，人群高喊着“美国！”
Around 20 minutes north, at Metrobar, a few hundred Democrats assembled in the garden for a victory party. Emerging from a taxi, I was met with the roar of the crowd. NBC News had just announced that Democrats had won the Senate. As Steve Kornacki broke down the results from Ohio on a Jumbotron erected in the garden of the bar, the crowd chanted, “USA!”
年轻的民主党志愿者米歇尔·米奥告诉我，这个夜晚对她的政党来说“进行得极好”。“基本上每一场竞选，甚至包括那些我原本以为不会对我们有利的竞选，都取得了胜利。”她希望民主党如何运用新获得的权力？“我想，要证明我们配得上选民对我们的信任。我希望我们能证明，我们与普通美国人的感受息息相关，并且确实感受到他们的痛苦。而且我们不会把这种支持视为理所当然。”两个壮汉拥抱在一起。“苏珊·柯林斯完蛋了！”其中一人喊道。
Michelle Meoh, a young Democratic volunteer, told me the night had gone “extremely well” for her party. “Basically every race, even races that I hadn’t thought would go in our favor, were wins.”What does she want Democrats to do with their newfound power? “I guess show that we’re worthy of the trust that the voters are placing in us. I want us to prove that we’re tapped into the feelings of ordinary Americans and that we really do feel their pain. And that we don’t take that support for granted.”Two burly men embraced. “Susan Collins is fucking gone!” one shouted.
我走向出口，此时歇斯底里的庆祝逐渐平息，科纳基在大屏幕上读出密歇根州的最新结果，民主党人阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛德以微弱优势领先共和党人迈克·罗杰斯。“我的感觉如何？！”一位明显喝多了的女人问道。我并没有问她。“感觉他妈的太棒了！”
I made my way to the exit as the hysterical celebrations died down, and Kornacki on the Jumbotron read the latest results in Michigan, where Democrat Abdul El-Sayed held a narrow lead over Republican Mike Rogers. “How am I feeling?!” asked a visibly overserved woman. I hadn’t asked. “Fucking great!”