自2020年以来，新冠疫情悄然塑造了美国政治。起初，反弹声嘶力竭、显而易见。关于学校关闭的愤怒和对口罩的沮丧，帮助诸如“Moms for Liberty”等团体接管了学区委员会；疫情期间的通货膨胀成为连续两场总统选举中的压倒性关切。
Since 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has quietly shaped American politics. At first, the backlash was loud and obvious. Anger about school closures and frustration with masking helped groups such as Moms for Liberty take over school boards, while pandemic-era inflation became an overriding concern in back-to-back presidential elections.
然而，虽然新冠疫情作为显性议题逐渐消退，但其影响却余波未平。特朗普赢得连任，在一定程度上是持续对通胀的挫败感和对疫情前生活的怀旧情绪相结合的结果。
But while Covid faded as an explicit issue, its effects lingered. Donald Trump won a second term in part due to a combination of continuing frustration over inflation and nostalgia for life before the pandemic.
甚至它渗透到了政策层面。特朗普将疫苗怀疑论者罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 Jr. 任命为卫生与公众服务部部长，削减了数千个卫生机构岗位，提议削减疾病控制中心和国立卫生研究院的资金，取消或暂停了研究拨款，试图收回州和地方卫生部门的疫情资金，并退出了世界卫生组织。
It even bled into policy. Trump put vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, cut thousands of health agency jobs, proposed funding cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, canceled or paused research grants, tried to claw back pandemic-era funding for state and local health departments and withdrew from the World Health Organization.
周二的结果之所以如此引人注目，部分原因在于这一点。在俄亥俄州，曾担任该州疫情应对负责人、卫生总监的艾米·阿克顿赢得了州长竞选。在密歇根州， Abdul El-Sayed——一位前公共卫生官员——赢得了参议院席位。南卡罗来纳州的儿科医生安妮·安德鲁斯在参议院竞选中获胜，以及众多具有医学或科学背景的众议院候选人也都获胜了。
That’s a big part of what makes Tuesday’s results so notable. In Ohio, Amy Acton, who led the state’s pandemic response as its health director, won the governor’s race. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official, won a Senate seat. Pediatrician Annie Andrews in South Carolina’s Senate race and numerous House candidates with medical or scientific backgrounds also won.
这些候选人并未明确以疫情记录为竞选主题，但他们的疫情记录似乎也没有成为劣势。结果表明，直接攻击新冠疫情应对已失去了大部分选举影响力。疫情政治时代或许终于结束了。
The candidates weren’t explicitly running on their pandemic records, but those records didn’t appear to be liabilities either. The results suggest that direct attacks over the Covid-19 response have lost much of their electoral power. The era of pandemic politics may finally be over.
创伤性事件可以重塑未来多年的政治。大萧条推动了公众对更积极的联邦经济角色和更强有力安全网的广泛支持。9月11日袭击事件带来了更激进的对外政策和更广泛的国内监控接受度。
Traumatic events can reshape politics for years to come. The Great Depression fueled public support for a more active federal role in the economy and a stronger safety net. The Sept. 11 attacks ushered in a more aggressive foreign policy and broader acceptance of domestic surveillance.
最初围绕大流行的争斗集中在口罩、疫苗强制令和学校停课上，但反弹很快扩大为对公共卫生机构和政府权威更广泛的不信任。
While the initial fights over the pandemic centered on masking, vaccine mandates and school closures, the backlash soon widened into a broader mistrust of public health institutions and government authority.
你可以从2021年愤怒的家长在当地教育委员会抗议远程教学，画一条线连到今天关于家长能否让孩子退出某些课程、哪些书可以上学校图书馆书架、以及跨性别学生能否参加体育比赛的争斗。
You can draw a line from angry parents protesting at their local school board over remote learning in 2021 to today’s fights over whether parents can opt their children out of certain lessons, which books can go on school library shelves and whether transgender students can play sports.
同样，关于mRNA疫苗的阴谋论已演变成一个模糊的“让美国再次健康”运动，其中包含对儿童疫苗接种计划等事项的看法。你的邻居在大流行期间可能服用了伊维菌素，现在可能转而使用维生素A和鳕鱼肝油治疗麻疹。
Similarly, conspiracy theories about mRNA vaccines have metastasized into an amorphous “Make America Healthy Again” movement with thoughts on pediatric vaccine schedules, among other things. Your neighbor who took ivermectin during the pandemic may now be turning to vitamin A and cod liver oil to treat measles.
影响不限于公共卫生。紧急商业贷款和个人刺激支票在大流行期间成功遏制了更严重的经济危机，这种短期成功似乎打开了关于直接现金发放的辩论大门——这曾被认为在政治上不可想象。“刺激支票”可能为“特朗普账户”、保障收入试点项目，以及总统近乎不断承诺的“政府效率部”红利、关税退税和汽油回扣铺平了道路。
The effects aren’t limited to public health. The short-term success of the emergency business loans and individual stimulus checks at staving off an even worse economic crisis during the pandemic seems to have opened up the debate over direct cash payments — once considered politically unthinkable. “Stimmies” may have paved the way for Trump Accounts, guaranteed-income pilots programs and the president’s near-constant promises of DOGE dividends, tariff refunds and gas rebates.
但虽然这些更广泛的影响可能会持续一段时间，大流行政治的更直接时代似乎已经结束。
But while those broader effects are likely to remain with us for a while, the more direct era of pandemic politics appears to be over.
俄亥俄州为此次选举周期提供了最清晰的测试，即那些旧有的争斗在投票箱前是否仍然奏效。共和党提名人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米试图将阿克顿的大流行记录变成累赘，重提学校停课和公共卫生限制的斗争，并指责她推广“新冠意识形态”。俄亥俄州选民依然选了她。
Ohio offered the clearest test this election cycle of whether those old fights still work at the ballot box. Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy tried to make Acton’s pandemic record a liability, reviving battles over school closures and public health restrictions and accusing her of promoting a “Covid ideology.”Ohioans elected her anyway.
疫情释放出的不信任与怨气仍在塑造美国政治。但周二的结果表明，抨击疫情时期的限制措施和公共卫生官员，已不再是稳赢选票的法宝。
The mistrust and grievances unleashed by the pandemic are still shaping American politics. But Tuesday’s results suggest that attacks on pandemic-era restrictions and public health officials are no longer reliable vote-getters.
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