在长达20个月的时间里，唐纳德·特朗普的总统任期以对美国制衡体系蓄意、公开且有组织的攻击为标志。周二，美国选民发起反击，重新确立了美国的民主平衡。特朗普将2024年的总统授权解读为一张可以集中权力的空白支票。随后，他利用这种集中起来的权力，推行其意识形态议程中最极端的版本。特朗普削减了美国的福利体系，在以色列的怂恿下部署美国军队参战，改变了美国人与世界的贸易方式，拆解了美国联邦政府的部分机构，支持美国大型科技公司的野心，让移民（包括公民）的生活变得极其艰难，将美国变成一个帝国式的掠夺性强国——甚至对朋友也是如此——并为其家族和效忠者组成的个人生态圈聚敛财富。
For 20 months, Donald Trump’s presidency was marked by a deliberate, visible, and structured assault on America’s system of checks and balances. On Tuesday, American voters struck back and re-established the democratic equilibrium in America. Trump interpreted the 2024 presidential mandate as a blank cheque to concentrate power. He then used that centralised power to implement the most extreme version of his ideological agenda. Trump scaled down America’s welfare system, deployed the American military for wars on Israel’s prodding, altered how Americans traded with the world, dismantled parts of the American federal government, backed the ambitions of American big tech, made life dramatically difficult for immigrants (including citizens), turned the United States into an imperial extractive power even vis a vis friends, and amassed wealth for his personal ecosystem of family and loyalists.
什么发生了逆转，原因何在？在此过程中，由共和党领导的国会因害怕违抗特朗普会疏远基本盘选民并危及自身席位而予以配合。参议院和众议院协助削减了医疗补贴。两院既没有充分行使权力来阻止伊朗战争，也没有在通胀问题上挑战白宫。他们让渡了关税方面的权力，也没有传达被更高成本摧毁的小企业的声音。
What flipped and why? In the process, a Republican-led Congress, petrified that defying Trump would alienate base voters and jeopardise their own seats, played along. The Senate and House aided the cut to health subsidies. The two chambers neither asserted their powers sufficiently to stop the Iran war nor did they challenge White House on inflation. They ceded authority on tariffs and did not channel the voices of small businesses devastated by higher costs.
他们没有为立法设立的联邦机构及其遭大幅裁减的员工挺身而出。他们没有汇集并表达美国腹地以及年轻专业人士和学生群体对人工智能的焦虑。他们没有对白宫对待美国盟友和伙伴的方式发声反对。他们没有调查任何不当行为。而且，美国国会没有阐明对移民的打击所带来的违法性、不道德性以及严重的经济和社会代价。
They did not stand up for legislatively established federal agencies and their decimated workforce. They did not aggregate and articulate the anxieties around artificial intelligence across the American heartland and among younger professionals and students. They did not speak up against White House’s treatment of American allies and partners. They did not investigate any wrongdoing. And the US Congress did not outline the illegality, amorality, and the grave economic and social costs that have come with the crackdown on immigration.
但特朗普选择遗忘一个关于美国政治的简单事实，而其他共和党人又不敢提醒他。美国是一个47比47的国家，选民几乎在两党之间平均分配。总统选举归根结底取决于七个摇摆州中六到七个百分点左右的摇摆选民。将对七个摇摆州的全面胜利——哪怕只领先几个百分点——解读为完全改变美国宪政秩序、美国国家性质以及美国与世界关系的授权，正如特朗普所做的那样，存在过度扩张的高政治风险。
But there was a simple fact about American politics that Trump chose to forget, and other Republicans were too fearful to remind him about. America is a 47-47 country, with its electorate almost equally divided between the two parties. A presidential election boils down to six to seven per cent swing voters in seven swing states. Interpreting even a sweep of the seven states by a few percentage points as a mandate to completely alter the make up of the American constitutional order, the nature of the American state, and America’s relationship with the world — as Trump did — carried high political risks of overreach.
国会不再履行其作为政府平等分支的宪法职责，而特朗普身边围绕着那些不愿挑战他直觉的人，行政部门便开始横冲直撞。美国人无处发泄愤怒。他们终于在中期选举中获得了发声的机会——而且发出了响亮的声音，方式有两种。美国选民夺回权力首先，选民已经埋葬了特朗普2024年的多族裔大联盟。已故印度政治家阿伦·贾特利在印度语境下常阐述的一条简单政治规则是：观察哪个政党保住了基本盘并侵蚀了对手的基本盘，哪个政党甚至难以保住自己的基本盘。
With the Congress no longer performing its constitutional role of being a coequal branch of the government, and Trump surrounding himself with those unwilling to challenge his instincts, the executive went on a rampage. And Americans had nowhere to express their anger. They finally got their chance to speak in the midterms — and they spoke loudly, in two distinct ways. American voters take back powerFor one, voters have buried Trump’s 2024 multiracial umbrella coalition. A simple rule of politics, often articulated by the late Arun Jaitley in the Indian context, was to watch which party had retained its base and managed to eat into its rival’s base and which party was struggling to even retain its own base.
2024年，民主党出于各种原因难以保住年轻男性、西班牙裔、穆斯林，甚至南亚裔和非裔美国人，而特朗普不仅保住了年长白人共和党基本盘，还将其扩大到正好包括民主党失去的那些选民群体。
In 2024, Democrats struggled for various reasons to retain young men, Hispanics, Muslims, even South Asians and African Americans, while Trump not just retained the older White Republican base but expanded it to include precisely the constituencies Democrats lost.
本次选举，情况正好相反。《纽约时报》对选民行为变化的分析描绘出一幅惊人的图景。51%的男性选民和61%的女性选民投了蓝票，与2024年相比，民主党在男性选民中增加了17个百分点，在女性选民中增加了13个百分点。
In this election, the reverse has happened. A New York Times analysis of the shifts in voter behaviour offers a stunning picture. Fifty-one per cent of the male voters, and 61% of women voters, voted blue, marking a 17 percentage point increase among men and 13 percentage point increase among women for Democrats from 2024.
民主党在白人、西班牙裔、非裔美国人、亚裔以及按年龄和教育水平划分的每一个群体中都取得了进展。事实上，如果民主党在堪萨斯州、得克萨斯州和南卡罗来纳州赢得参议院席位，甚至在佐治亚州和得克萨斯州赢得州长选举——这些全是共和党的票仓——那就是全国民意的明显信号。大局很简单。民主党选民出来了，愤怒而激昂。
Democrats gained among Whites, Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, and every single demographic group broken down by age and levels of education. Indeed, if Democrats have won senate races in Kansas, Texas and South Carolina and even gubernatorial races in Georgia and Texas — all Republican strongholds — it is a telling indicator of national mood. The big picture is simple. Democrats turned out, angry and charged.
摇摆选民转向了民主党。低投票意愿的选民转向了民主党。共和党基本盘萎缩了。我特朗普在JD·万斯将伊朗战争归咎于共和党中期选举失利后为其辩护：“我们不得不这么做”。其次，选民不仅否定了特朗普，还释放出对民主党在以色列和人工智能等问题上一种新式信息传递方式的开放态度，以及对截然不同类型的民主党候选人的接受度。
Swing voters turned Democrat. Low propensity voters turned Democrat. The Republican base shrank.I Trump defends Iran war after JD Vance blames it for Republicans' midterm losses: 'We had to do it'Second, voters did not just repudiate Trump but also signalled an openness to a new kind of Democratic messaging on issues ranging from Israel and AI, and receptivity to radically different kinds of Democratic candidates.
佐赫兰·马姆达尼在纽约开创性的市长竞选——一心聚焦生活可负担性、毫不掩饰地批评以色列和美国的以色列政策、拥抱美国多元主义、运用社交视频——为候选人创造了模板，并将一部分Z世代人群带入各州的左翼和进步政治。阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德如今成为美国首位穆斯林当选参议员，在密歇根州创造了历史，而民主社会主义者安吉·尼克松在佛罗里达州这样的特朗普世界核心地带发起了强有力的参议院挑战。
Zohran Mamdani’s pioneering mayoral campaign in New York — with its single-minded focus on affordability, unapologetic critique of Israel and America’s Israel policy, embrace of American pluralism, and use of social video — created a template for candidates and brought a segment of the Gen-Z crowd into left and progressive politics across states. Abdul El-Sayed, now America’s first Muslim Senator-elect, made history in Michigan while Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist, put up a formidable senate challenge in a state such as Florida which is ground zero of Trump world.
尽管中间派民主党候选人也取得了胜利，例如北卡罗来纳州的罗伊·库珀，但选民似乎正在向民主党建制派发出一个信号：现在不是谨慎、走中间路线政治的时候；不满和疏离情绪弥漫；候选人的真实性和对体制的激进批判，配以进步主义的政策路线图，在选举中是行得通的。随着美国消化这一民意授权、两党各自吸取教训，请准备好迎接两个影响：华盛顿特区的分裂政府，以及两党内部的继承人之战。
While more centrist Democratic candidates have prevailed, too, for instance Roy Cooper in North Carolina, voters appear to be sending a message to the Democratic establishment: this is not the time for cautious, middle of the road, politics; discontent and alienation is rife; and candidate authenticity and radical systemic critiques with progressive policy road maps can electorally work. As America processes this mandate, and both parties draw lessons, get ready for two implications: a divided government in Washington DC, and a battle of succession within both parties.
未来两年与2028年总统选举特朗普的个性和过往记录表明，他将继续无视国会、动用行政命令，并借助其代理人，继续他对政策、政治和人采取对抗性和攫取性的做法。民主党人则手握胜利的民意授权，将控制可供政府使用的财政资金，启动对涉嫌腐败的调查，并对特朗普想要获得确认的任何提名人选行使控制权。不要高估能够对行政 branch 施加的立法制约，但也不要低估它能让政府的日常管理变得多么困难。
The next two years and 2028 presidential pollsTrump’s personality and track record suggests he will continue to disregard Congress, use executive orders, and deploy his proxies to continue his confrontational and extractive approach to policy, politics and people. The Democrats, armed with a triumphant mandate, will control the finances available to the administration, kick-start investigations into alleged corruption, and exercise control over any nominees Trump wants confirmed. Don’t overestimate the legislative breaks that can be imposed on the executive, but don’t underestimate how difficult it can make everyday management of government either.
共和党内部将开始出现低声议论：在这场惨败之后，JD·万斯是否有能力接过MAGA的衣钵，还是像马可·鲁比奥这样的人更有胜算，抑或党内是否为特朗普圈子之外的候选人打开了空间。特朗普及其家人以何种方式介入将至关重要。在民主党阵营内，近十几位雄心勃勃的政治人物将从本周开始展开对提名的疯狂争夺，对更进步主义纲领的胃口将会增加，尽管提名很可能要到2028年2月或3月某个时候的“超级星期二”之后才会锁定。但除了眼前和战术层面之外，美国中期选举结果的重要性并不在于民主党的胜利。
Murmurs will begin with Republican ranks on whether JD Vance is equipped to take over the MAGA mantle after this rout, or someone like Marco Rubio would have a better shot, or whether room has opened within the party for a candidate outside the Trump world. Which way Trump and his family weigh in will be critical. Within the Democratic universe, a mad scramble for the nomination among close to a dozen ambitious politicians will kick-start from this week, and the appetite for more progressive platforms will increase, even as the nomination is only likely to be locked in after Super Tuesday sometime in February or March 2028. But beyond the immediate and tactical, the importance of America’s midterm results lie not in the victory of Democratic Party.
这是民主精神与制衡机制在这个世界上最古老民主国家的回归。这对世界和印度都是好消息。
It is in the return of democratic spirit and checks and balances to the world’s oldest democracy. And that is good news for the world and India.