不久前，在中期选举中遭遇惨败后，总统既释放了一些和解信号，也释放了一些好战信号。他向即将控制众议院的反对党发出警告：“你们不能一边立法一边调查——事情不是这么运作的。你们不能同时在两条轨道上推进。”然而，当他们真的两条轨道并行时，他也照做了，一边应对国会调查，一边与国会对手合作，在贸易和环境立法上取得成果。当危机来袭时，他与众议院合作推出了一项具有历史意义的经济救助方案——尽管那时，反对党已按党派路线投票弹劾了他。
Not long ago, after a whopping defeat in midterm elections, the president made some conciliatory noises and some belligerent ones. He issued a warning to the opposition party that was taking control of the House. “You can’t legislate and investigate simultaneously—it just doesn’t work that way,” he said. “You can’t go down two tracks at the same time.”Yet when they did go down both tracks, he did, too, battling congressional investigations while collaborating with his congressional adversaries to achieve legislation on trade and the environment. When crisis struck he worked with the House to deliver an historic economic rescue package—even though by then, in a party-line vote, the opposition had impeached him.
那位总统当然是唐纳德·特朗普，在他的第一个任期内。这一次，在遭遇更大规模的中期选举惩罚后，他释放的矛盾信号更加强烈。他提出了与民主党人合作、解决美国最棘手问题之一——失灵的移民制度——的想法。然而，他任命斯蒂芬·米勒为幕僚长，米勒是他残酷驱逐议程的执行者，为民主党人所痛恨，甚至一些共和党立法者也认为他过于强硬。
That president was, of course, Donald Trump, in his first term. This time around, after an even bigger midterm rebuke, he is sending more intensely mixed signals. He has floated the idea of working with Democrats to solve one of America’s most vexing problems, its broken immigration system. Yet he has appointed as his chief of staff Stephen Miller, the enforcer of his brutal deportation agenda, whom Democrats despise and even some Republican legislators consider too hardline.
考虑到民主党的优先事项，尤其是那些从原本属于共和党的州和选区当选的议员，特朗普比第一个任期拥有更大的机会取得进展，包括为他一直声称代表的工薪阶层选民。人们可以抱有希望。但历史规律，以及这位总统的个人规律，表明他不会这么做。
Given the priorities of the Democrats, particularly those elected from what were Republican states and districts, Mr Trump has a bigger opportunity than in his first term to make progress, including for the working-class voters he has always claimed to represent. One can hope. But the historical pattern, and this president’s particular pattern, suggest he won’t.
普林斯顿大学教授弗朗西丝·李指出，第二任期总统无需再面对选民、意在留下政治遗产并寻求历史评价，往往不会在中期选举失利后退缩。“他们倾向于采取强硬立场并坚持下去，”她说。尽管美国民众对伊拉克战争感到绝望，小布什总统仍增派部队；奥巴马总统利用行政命令保护部分非法入境移民，激怒了共和党人。
Freed from facing voters again, intent on a legacy and looking to history for vindication, second-term presidents tend not to retreat from signature positions after midterm reversals, notes Frances Lee, a professor at Princeton. “They tend to take a hard line and persist,” she says. President George W. Bush sent more troops to Iraq despite Americans’ despair over that war; President Barack Obama outraged Republicans by using executive orders to protect some immigrants in the country illegally.
特朗普则开始挥舞一顶绣有“否决”字样的红帽子，这是他目前处境下的熟悉威胁。在执政前五年半里，小布什一次否决权都未行使，这一纪录仅次于托马斯·杰斐逊。2006年民主党大胜后，他否决了11项法案，略多于奥巴马——后者在2014年中期选举惨败后否决了10项。
Mr Trump has taken to brandishing a red hat emblazoned with the word “veto”, a familiar threat in his circumstances. In the first five and a half years of his presidency, Mr Bush issued not a single veto, a record surpassed only by Thomas Jefferson. After the crushing Democratic victory in 2006, he vetoed 11 bills, edging out Mr Obama, who, after his midterm drubbing in 2014, vetoed ten.
布什和奥巴马总统确实达成了一些立法妥协。然而，与这两位前任——以及记忆中任何一位总统——不同，特朗普将冲突作为其政治吸引力的核心。在中期选举后，视频播客塔克·卡尔森嘲讽他“看起来更像个唠叨的老太婆，而不是阿尔法男性”，特朗普可能认为，恢复斗士形象是巩固共和党支持的最佳途径。他知道，弹劾最能达成此目的。“有人说这对我反而有利，”他在接受哥伦比亚广播公司《60分钟》节目采访时主动提到自己的两次弹劾经历。
Presidents Bush and Obama achieved some legislative compromises. Yet unlike those two predecessors—and unlike any president in memory—Mr Trump has made conflict core to his political appeal. Having been dismissed after the midterms as seeming “more like a bitchy old woman than an alpha male” by Tucker Carlson, a vodcaster, Mr Trump may see restoring his image as a fighter as his best path to consolidating Republican support. He knows there is nothing like an impeachment to accomplish this. “There are those that say that worked out to my advantage,” he volunteered after the midterms, referring to his two impeachments in an interview on “60 Minutes” on CBS.
想要在基本盘面前树立“斗士”形象，或许能解释他为何拒绝解职那位滑稽可笑的国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯——而在2006年中期选举后，布什曾迫使唐纳德·拉姆斯菲尔德下台。特朗普还面临布什未曾遇到的障碍。特朗普政府的混乱无序已严重损害了大多数加入者的声誉，以至于这位总统不大可能吸引到像鲍勃·盖茨那样分量的任命人选——盖茨曾任中情局局长，获两党支持确认接替拉姆斯菲尔德。
The desire to be seen by his base as a fighter may explain his refusal to eject his cartoonish secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, as, after the midterms of 2006, Mr Bush forced Donald Rumsfeld out. Mr Trump also faces an obstacle Mr Bush did not. The shambolic Trump administrations have so damaged the reputations of most who have joined that this president is unlikely to attract any appointee with the standing of Bob Gates, a former CIA chief who was confirmed with bipartisan support to replace Mr Rumsfeld.
基本盘政治与无能恐怕也会让尝试推行移民改革以失败告终。特朗普从未表现出兑现复杂承诺所需的自律，无论是重建美国基础设施、修复医疗体系，还是精简官僚机构。他也始终将最铁杆追随者的忠诚置于首位，依靠他们的支持——尤其是在初选期间——来威慑其他共和党官员。他暗示可能与民主党在移民问题上合作，立即招来“让美国再次伟大”铁杆分子的强烈抗议，他们对“特赦”前景感到愤怒。
Base politics and incompetence would probably also doom a foray into immigration reform. Mr Trump has never summoned the discipline to deliver on complex initiatives he promised, from rebuilding America’s infrastructure to fixing its health-care system to streamlining its bureaucracy. He has also always prioritised the loyalty of his most hard-core followers, relying on their support, particularly during primaries, to intimidate other Republican officials. His suggestion he might work with Democrats on immigration brought immediate howls of protest from MAGA stalwarts, furious at the prospect of “amnesty”.
还有一种取得进展的可能性，这使特朗普区别于其前任总统：在吸引其基本盘但不吸引本党传统成员的议题上，他独特的政治风格让他有机会与反对党合作。他过去曾表示，对民主党提出的提高最低工资或限制信用卡利率等建议持开放态度。然而，这种机会的性质本身也带来了障碍。此类想法令其党内领袖产生分歧，其中一些人在民粹主义的特朗普时代里，依然坚守共和党的经济正统观念。
There is one further possibility for progress, which sets Mr Trump apart from his presidential predecessors: on issues that appeal to his base, but not to traditional members of his own party, his idiosyncratic politics gives him a chance to work with the opposition. He has, in the past, signalled openness to such Democratic proposals as raising the minimum wage or capping interest rates on credit cards. However, the nature of this opportunity brings its own obstacles. Such ideas divide leaders of his party, some of whom have clung to Republican economic orthodoxy throughout the populist Trump era.
随着部分共和党政客在中期选举后已开始质疑特朗普主义的原则，总统可能不愿让自己对党的掌控面临更大风险。“我认为他想成为造王者，”李女士说。“如果他过度疏远党内人士，就无法做到这一点。”
With some Republican politicians already questioning tenets of Trumpism after the midterms, the president may not want to put his control of the party at greater risk. “I think he would like to be a kingmaker,” Ms Lee says. “And if he alienates the party sufficiently, he won’t be.”
无论怎样，考虑到他表现出最大意识形态承诺的政策，这可能都是特朗普的命运。尽管他成功说服甚至民主党人接受某些关税，例如针对中国电动汽车的关税，但他对全球贸易战的热情并不受欢迎。然而，他似乎肯定会与国会任何试图限制其使用关税权力的举措对抗。在这方面，他或许能在唯一另一位任非连续届总统的格罗弗·克利夫兰身上找到先例。这位民主党人坚守金本位教条，导致其党在1896年提名威廉·詹宁斯·布赖恩为继任者时分裂。布赖恩落败，民主党随后16年未能重返白宫。■
That may be Mr Trump’s fate regardless, given the policy to which he has shown the greatest ideological commitment. Although he has succeeded in persuading even Democrats to embrace some tariffs, such as on electric cars from China, his enthusiasm for a global trade war is unpopular. Yet he seems certain to battle any attempt by Congress to restrain his use of tariffs. Here he may find a precedent in the only other president to serve non-consecutive terms, Grover Cleveland, a Democrat whose doctrinaire commitment to the gold standard split his party when it nominated his successor, William Jennings Bryan, in 1896. Bryan was defeated, and the Democrats did not find their way back to the White House for 16 years. ■