这是划时代的时刻，标志着我们政治史进入新纪元。而这一次，所有人都争相清晰地命名发生了什么。
It was epochal and marks a new era in our political history. And for once everyone rushed to name clearly what happened.
2026年中期选举翌晨，佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯直言不讳。对共和党而言，这是“接近灭绝级别的事件”。其影响将“在未来十年乃至更久的时间里回荡”。“这是水门事件级别的否决，”即将成为得克萨斯州唯一共和党参议员的特德·克鲁兹在一档播客节目中说。
The morning after the 2026 midterm elections, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was searingly blunt. For the Republican Party it was “close to an extinction level event.”Its effects will “reverberate for the next decade or more.”“It was a Watergate-level repudiation,” said Ted Cruz, soon to be Texas’ lone Republican senator, on a podcast.
共和党全国委员会前主席罗娜·麦克丹尼尔（特朗普首个任期内担任）周三在福克斯新闻表示，这场选举不仅是一场民主党浪潮，更是“一场共和党内部的反叛”。不仅在于民主党胜利的席位数量，更在于胜利的幅度。这是一个大获全胜之夜——得克萨斯州的詹姆斯·塔拉里科以12个百分点优势获胜，佐治亚州的乔恩·奥索夫以18个百分点优势获胜，北卡罗来纳州的罗伊·库珀以20个百分点优势获胜。
Ronna McDaniel, Republican National Committee chairman in the first Trump term, told Fox News on Wednesday the election wasn’t only a Democratic wave, it was “a Republican rebellion.”It wasn’t only the number of Democratic victories, it was their size. It was a night of landslides—James Talarico of Texas by 12, Jon Ossoff of Georgia by 18, Roy Cooper of North Carolina by 20.
乔纳森·马丁在《早安乔》节目中表示，旧有的红蓝对立范式已告终结。德里克·汤普森在其Substack通讯中同样惊叹：“堪萨斯州像新罕布什尔州一样投票，密西西比州像威斯康星州一样投票。”在特朗普时代，所有政治都是全国性的。
Jonathan Martin on “Morning Joe” said the old red-blue paradigm has ended. Derek Thompson similarly marveled on his Substack: “Kansas voted like New Hampshire and Mississippi voted like Wisconsin.”In the age of Trump all politics is national.
一个崛起了十年的联盟解体了。唐纳德·特朗普、史蒂夫·班农等人根据2016年集会上什么能博得欢呼，拼凑出了其纲领。他们边走边编。但洞察、构想并建立一个联盟、并使其维系十年，需要一种天才，其解体意义重大。
A rising 10-year-old coalition came apart. Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and others had slapped its platform together based on what got cheers at the rallies of 2016. They made it up as they went along. But it takes a kind of genius to spy, imagine and build a coalition and make it hold for a decade, and it means plenty that it collapsed.
特朗普先生是这场毁灭的缔造者。他挑选背书的候选人，做出战略决策，决定说什么、何时动用竞选资金。（据《纽约时报》报道，选举后期广告价格被抬高时，他视这笔钱为“我的钱”。）他正暴怒并四处推卸责任——怪福克斯新闻的民调；如果他上了选票本会是“一场大胜”；格雷格·阿博特是“仅挂名共和党人”。拜托了，弗雷多，是你自己。
Mr. Trump was the author of the ruin. He picked the candidates to back, made the decisions on strategy, decided what to say and when to spend the money in his war chest. (Late in the election, according to the New York Times, when the price of ads had been jacked up; he considered it “my money.”) He is fuming and casting blame—it was Fox News’s polls; if he’d been on the ballot it would have been “a landslide”; Greg Abbott is “a RINO.”Please. It was you, Fredo.
副总统JD·万斯周三早些时候在X平台发帖，急于为发生的事情定下基调。他说，“我认识的最聪明的数据专家”告诉他，“很多2024年投特朗普/万斯票的选民很愤怒。”这位最聪明的数据专家简直是个福尔摩斯。
Vice President JD Vance rushed to lay down a marker on what had happened in a post early Wednesday on X. He said “the smartest data guy I know” had told him “a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed.”Smartest Data Guy is a real Sherlock. Republicans, Mr. Vance said, did go to the polls—but “the main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.”
万斯先生说，共和党人确实去投票了——“但主要问题是，许多2024年投特朗普/万斯票的人在2026年投了民主党的票。”没错。他们“愤怒”究竟是为了什么？
Well, yes. What were they “pissed” about?
“我们输掉选举的原因是战争，”万斯打字道。“总统本人昨晚也这么说了。”要暗示可能还有其他、更重要的因素，那就是“煤气灯效应”（指让人怀疑自己的判断）。但这不是“战争”。如果是战争，从战争一开始就会在全国爆发示威。战争是原因之一，万斯先生的这种归因对他很有利。他一直被认为反对这场战争，所以把战争说成惨败的原因，能让他显得先见之明。特朗普先生说是战争，因为他相信自己决定介入是英勇之举，现在却因英勇而受苦。
“The reason we lost is the war,” Mr. Vance typed. “The president himself said so last night.”To suggest there might have been other, more important factors is “gaslighting.”But it wasn’t “the war.”If it had been the war, there would have been demonstrations across the country from the time it commenced. The war was part of it, and Mr. Vance’s framing is convenient. He is long said to have opposed the war, so making it the reason for the debacle makes him look prescient. Mr. Trump says it’s the war because he believes his decision to go in was heroic, and now he suffers due to his heroism.
如此大的失利有很多原因，奔腾的大河有很多源头。这是一种普遍的经济不安全感，因高物价而加剧，高物价与战争有关，但也由关税驱动。还有腐败。
A loss this size has many reasons, a river this raging had many sources. It was a pervasive sense of financial insecurity worsened by high prices, which are connected to the war but also driven by tariffs. And it was corruption.
美国人预期政府会有一定程度的腐败，因为政府由人组成，人非圣贤。如果政府能保持经济强劲和社会安定，他们会接受正常程度的腐败。但如果在经济和安定上都失败了，他们就会看清你们的腐败并为此愤怒。如果你们给他们的腐败花哨且厚颜无耻，他们就会惩罚你们。他们会承认你们异常卑鄙贪婪——比特币！加密货币！
The American people expect a certain amount of corruption in government because government is composed of people, and men aren’t angels. They’ll accept a normal amount if the government keeps a strong economy and peace. But fail on the economy and peace and they’ll see your corruption and be angered by it. And if you give them corruption that is showy and shameless, they will punish you. They will admit to themselves that you are unusually sleazy and moneygrubbing—Bitcoin! Crypto!
售卖赦免令的指控！联邦合同给儿子们的公司！PLS WIRE AMEX 100K SOONEST！（请尽快汇款10万美元至美运卡！）——并背弃你们。在这方面，这届白宫比任何其他方面都更让共和党品牌跌入谷底。
Charges of pardons for sale! Federal contracts for the companies of the sons! PLS WIRE AMEX 100K SOONEST!—and they will turn on you. In this regard most of all, this White House drove the Republican brand into the ground. In election coverage on the Free Press, Meghan McCain noted that when you see Mar-a-Lago in the media, it’s always like they’re having nonstop parties out of “The Great Gatsby.”
在《自由新闻报》的选举报道中，梅根·麦凯恩指出，媒体呈现的海湖庄园总像是在上演永不落幕的《了不起的盖茨比》式派对。所有的狂欢都显得奢华、富贵且漫不经心，而俱乐部之外，正值匮乏与焦虑的时代。
All the reveling, it’s fancy and rich and careless, and in a time, outside the club, of want and anxiety. It’s all stilettos and tuxes and gowns and pricey surgery and shiny tuxedo loafers in there, and in the White House.
那里到处是细高跟鞋、燕尾服、礼服、昂贵的整容手术和锃亮的燕尾服皮鞋，白宫里也是如此。在大选前三天的万圣节夜晚，庆典盛大且以丛林为主题。《雅虎新闻》称这是“一场露营风、充满氨纶与亮片的聚会”，设有鱼子酱吧。客人们“穿着精心制作或近乎全裸的服装”。《华盛顿邮报》的记者团报告提到，有人装扮成豹子和蛇，有人身穿“虎纹晚宴夹克”。
On Halloween night, three days before the epochal election, the festivities were huge and jungle-themed. Yahoo News called it “a camp, spandex-and-glitter-filled affair” with a caviar bar. Some guests dressed “in elaborate or barely-there costumes.”The Washington Post pool report had people dressed as leopards and snakes and in “tiger-print dinner jackets.”When I read of it I thought of the costume party in the classic 1962 movie “The Manchurian Candidate”—a scary scene in which affluent Washington power-brokers gather in a mansion and the corrupt Sen. John Iselin, dressed as Abraham Lincoln, drunkenly spoons caviar into the shape of an American flag.
读到这些，我联想起1962年经典电影《曼彻斯特候选人》中的化装舞会——一个令人毛骨悚然的场景：富裕的华盛顿权力掮客聚集在豪宅中，腐败的参议员约翰·艾塞林装扮成亚伯拉罕·林肯，醉醺醺地用鱼子酱拼出一面美国国旗。
This administration’s soul is seen in its social life, and it is the opposite of populism—it is more like a low-class, high-tack oligarchy dominated by patricians who feel no obligation to even fake a little class.
这个政府的灵魂体现在它的社交生活中，这与民粹主义截然相反——它更像是一个由贵族主导的低级趣味、高调炫耀的寡头统治，他们甚至不觉得有必要伪装一下体面。
The most clueless 1980s Kennebunkport Republican grandee would never flaunt wealth as these people do in their vulgarity and conceit.
最愚钝的1980年代肯纳邦克波特共和党显要，也绝不会像这些人这样在庸俗与自负中炫耀财富。在我有生之年，共和党曾有过许多好坏不同的面貌，但从未堕落至此。
In my lifetime the GOP has been many things good and bad, but it had never been decadent. In a post-election piece Thursday, Josh Dawsey of the Journal reported that voters in focus groups who didn’t normally monitor Washington often brought up “Trump’s pet projects”—the ballroom, the Reflecting Pool.
《华尔街日报》的乔什·道西在周四的一篇选后文章中报道，焦点小组中那些平时不关注华盛顿动态的选民，常提到“特朗普的宠儿项目”——舞厅、倒影池。一位政治策略师告诉道西先生，他们会说：“他根本不在乎我正在经历什么”以及“他想把名字印在所有东西上”。该党要从中摆脱出来，将需要数年时间。
A political strategist told Mr. Dawsey they’d say things like, “He doesn’t really care what I’m going through” and “He wants to put his name on everything.”It’s going to take years for the party to dig its way out of this. I’ll end with a prediction I hope doesn’t come true.
我要以一个希望不会成真的预测作为结尾。之所以把它写进来，是因为现实中的共和党人正在思考特朗普对他们意味着什么，以及他们欠他的什么，因为他们开始重建。
I include it because Republicans on the ground now are thinking about what he has been to them, and what they owe him, as they start to rebuild. At some point I suspect Mr. Trump is going to turn on his party.
我怀疑，在某个时刻，特朗普会反戈一击，攻击自己的党派。他们不配拥有他，他们让他失望了，他想帮他们，但他们不让他帮。这将是真正的“地堡独白”。这大概一直是他注定的结局：在办公桌后转过身来，对着观众说“你被解雇了”。
They didn’t deserve him, they let him down, he tried to help them but they wouldn’t let him. It’s going to be real bunker talk. It’s how he was probably always destined to wind up, swiveling around from the desk and telling the audience it’s fired. We’re thinking of the scene from “A Face in the Crowd,” in which the charming and garrulous Lonesome Rhodes, a great network television star, signs off from his weekly show.
我们想到电影《民众的面孔》中的一个场景：迷人且健谈的朗萨姆·罗兹，一位伟大的电视网络明星，在每周节目结束时谢幕。字幕滚动，我们看到他在背景中无声地说话。但他分享的不是淳朴的智慧，而是告诉一位演员他对观众的看法。控制室里有人偷偷打开了声音，全美听到了：“晚安，你们这些愚蠢的白痴。晚安，你们这些卑鄙的懒汉。”我怀疑那种时刻即将到来。又一次背叛，又一个让共和党人挺直腰杆、重振旗鼓的理由。[视频] 《华尔街日报》观点：民主党会误读他们的胜利吗？
The credits roll, and we see him talking in the background, silently. But he’s not sharing folksy wisdom, he’s telling an actor what he thinks of the audience. The sound is secretly switched on in the control room, and America hears it: “Good night, you stupid idiots. Good night, you miserable slobs.”I suspect that kind of moment is coming. Another betrayal, another reason for Republicans to stand up straight and recover themselves. [video] WSJ Opinion: Will Democrats Misread Their Victory?