在他的新回忆录中，第46任总统好斗、不悔改、不反省。作者：马特·维瑟 乔·拜登有一句最爱的话，多年来他将其归因于不同的家人，最常归因于他的母亲：母亲会告诉他，乔伊，永不屈服；永不低头；永不跪下；永不退让。这种情感贯穿了他近500页的回忆录，他在书中讲述了自己担任总统的四年、决定竞选连任，以及在美国历史上最糟糕的总统辩论表现之后试图继续参选的经历。
In his new memoir, the 46th president is pugnacious, unrepentant, and unreflective. By Matt Viser Joe Biden has a favorite saying that he has attributed to various family members over the years, most often to his mother: Joey, she’d tell him, never bow; never bend; never kneel; never yield. That sentiment runs through his nearly 500-page memoir, as he recounts his four years as president, his decision to run for reelection, and his attempt to stay in the race after the worst presidential-debate performance in American history.
“今天，不缺少认为我盲目地急于再次参选的人，”他写道，准确地说。“受野心驱动。自私。对年龄方面的担忧一无所知。”“我比任何人都清楚自己多大年纪。我知道自己能做什么，不能做什么。我仔细监控自己如何应对工作的要求。没有一个例子表明我未能履行自己的职责。”从中可以看出，拜登既不反省也不悔改。
“Today there is no shortage of people who think I blindly raced to run again. Driven by ambition. Selfishness. Unaware of the concerns about my age,” he states, accurately. “I knew better than anyone how old I was. I knew what I was—and wasn’t—capable of doing. I carefully monitored how I was meeting the demands of the job. And there is not a single example of me failing to handle my responsibilities.”Biden, as you can tell, is neither reflective nor repentant.
他不承认错误，似乎几乎对什么都不后悔。他认为自己竞选连任是正确的，希望自己有机会与唐纳德·特朗普进行第二场辩论，并且仍然坚称自己保持了普通选民的支持，即使党内领导层施压要求他退出选举。相反的证据从未打断拜登对自己半个世纪政治生涯中最后举动的叙述。为了论证他的辩论灾难不应成为取消资格的理由，他指出贝拉克·奥巴马在2012年第一场辩论中表现“糟糕”，并将“止血”的任务留给了他的副总统。“而我做到了。”这个论点可能难以令人信服，但它非常典型的拜登风格。
He does not concede mistakes, and seems to regret almost nothing. He believes he was right to run for a second term, wishes he had been given the chance for a second debate with Donald Trump, and still insists he maintained the support of average voters even as party leadership pressed him to get out of the race. Evidence to the contrary never intrudes on Biden’s recounting of his last acts in politics after a half-century-long career. To make the case that his debate debacle should not have been disqualifying, he notes that Barack Obama had had a “terrible” outing during his first debate in 2012 and had left it to his vice president to “stop the bleeding. Which I did.”The argument may strain credulity, but it is quintessentially Biden.
已有几本书涉及这段历史——包括吉尔·拜登的《东翼视角》，该书于6月出版。但乔·拜登的回忆录《答应我，美国》是他用自己语言阐述想法的最完整记录。最引人注目的一段出现在书的最后三分之一处，在拜登叙述其总统任期关键事件之后。随着特朗普成为共和党可能的提名人，拜登提出了一个非常具有特朗普风格的理由，解释为何他需要再次与特朗普对决，这呼应了特朗普2016年的誓言“只有我能解决”：“我相信我是做这件事的最佳人选。我是唯一曾经击败过唐纳德·特朗普的人。我觉得我是再次做这件事的最佳人选。”
Several books have covered this ground—including Jill Biden’s View From the East Wing, which was released in June. But Joe Biden’s memoir, Promise Me, America, is the fullest account of his thinking in his own words. One of the most revealing passages comes in the last third of the book, after Biden narrates key episodes of his presidency. With Trump the likely Republican nominee, Biden comes up with a very Trumpian justification for why he needed to run against him, with echoes of Trump’s 2016 vow, “I alone can fix it”: “I believed I was the best person to do it. I was the only person who had ever beaten Donald Trump. And I felt I was the best person to do it again.”
拜登意识到这一选择引发了事后诸葛亮式的质疑。他只是不给这些质疑任何可信度。“我曾向自己提出尖锐的问题。我能做到吗？我还想做吗？有别人能做吗？”他写道。“我的回答是：是的，身体上我能胜任这份工作。而且我不仅想做，比以往任何时候都更想做。”然而，他也暗示自己参选的决定是无私的，而非自私的。
Biden is aware of the second-guessing that arose from that choice. He just doesn’t give it any credence. “I had asked the hard questions of myself. Could I do it? Did I still want to do it? Was there anyone else to do it?” he writes. “I answered that yes, physically I would be able to do the job. And not only did I want to do it, I wanted to do it more than ever.”Yet he also suggests his decision to run was selfless, not selfish.
他可能公开渴望总统职位大半辈子，但他坚持认为，只干一个任期本已让他满意。“对我来说，最容易的事就是宣布不再竞选连任。这对我、对我的家人都容易得多。但我感到有义务参选。我觉得我已让国家步入正轨。”事实上，他在2020年击败了特朗普，赢得了他所谓的“为这个国家的灵魂而战”，而书的前半部分回顾了他推动国会通过的一些大刀阔斧的立法。然而，四年后他做出的决定，却助特朗普重返权力巅峰。
He may have openly coveted the presidency for most of his life, but he insists that a single term would have been satisfactory. “The easiest thing for me to do would have been to say I wouldn’t run again. It would have been far easier for me, and for my family. But I felt an obligation to run. I felt I had set the country on the right path.”And he had, in fact, defeated Trump in 2020, winning what he termed a “battle for the soul of this nation,” and the first half of the book is a reminder of some of the sweeping legislation that he shepherded through Congress. The decisions he made four years later, though, helped Trump return to political power.
这本书在民主党欢庆之际出版，实属一大讽刺，而民主党似乎急于超越其曾经的模样。但如今，民主党正受到“过去之幽灵”的拜访。这本书提醒人们，曾经发生过痛苦的党内争论，标志着一场最终失败的争夺总统职位的尝试。它也提醒人们，拜登有多么固执，那个始终感到被忽视、对那些忽视他的民主党人心怀怨恨的人，至今仍有几笔旧账要算。
It is no small irony that the book is coming out during a moment of Democratic jubilation, one in which the party seems eager to move beyond what it once was. But now Democrats are being visited by a Ghost of the Party’s Past. The book is a reminder of the painful intramural debates that marked an ultimately failed attempt to hold the presidency. It is also a reminder of how stubborn Biden remains, how the man who always felt burned and resentful of Democrats who overlooked him still has some scores to settle.
拜登知道自己年事已高。他的声音变得沙哑，且容易说错地点和人名。但尤其他的步态，已成为其年龄的如此明显的视觉提醒，以至于在2022年5月，米特·罗姆尼及其家人到白宫进行私人参观时，此事也被提及。这位参议员把总统拉到一边，私下交谈了一下。“甩动手臂，”罗姆尼对他说。“请再说一遍？”拜登回答道。
Biden knew he was old. His voice had thinned, and he had a tendency of misstating places and names. But his gait, in particular, had become such a visual reminder of his age that it came up when Mitt Romney and his family were over at the White House in May 2022 for a private tour. The senator pulled the president aside for a quiet moment. “Pump your arms,” Romney told him. “Excuse me?”Biden responded.
“你走路时双手僵硬地放在身旁。甩动手臂，你会看起来更有活力、更自信，”罗姆尼指导道。
“You’re holding your hands stiffly by your side when you walk. Pump your arms and you’ll look more energetic and confident,” Romney instructed.
拜登认为这是好建议——通过早已失传的两党体面之道传达——并试图采纳。但这也成了拜登不愿将其年龄和认知能力下降视为不能竞选连任的理由的一个例子，仿佛只要足够用力地甩动手臂，就能让选民忽略他衰老的身体和头脑。“我相信，我在公共生活五十年中积累的经验和智慧，超过了年龄带来的明显弱点，”他写道。
Biden thought it was good advice—delivered via the long-lost art of bipartisan decency—and he tried to take it. But it also became an example of Biden’s reluctance to see his age and cognitive decline as a reason he couldn’t run for reelection, as if pumping his arms vigorously enough might cause voters to overlook his aging body and mind. “I believed the experience and the wisdom I had gained over fifty years in public life outweighed the obvious weaknesses of age,” he writes.
他指出，有两个时刻让他确信自己可以再次参选。第一个是他2023年的国情咨文，他说这篇演讲获得了“来自民主党同僚的普遍热烈支持”。第二个是两周后他未预先公布的基辅之行——这是一次前往战区的冒险之行，但在拜登的讲述中，这次行程包括打包好的花生酱果酱三明治，以及作为长期美铁乘客，对乌克兰铁路系统的着迷。他觉得自己已经消除了人们对他缺乏竞选连任精力的担忧。
He points to two moments that convinced him he could run again. The first was his 2023 State of the Union address, which he says received “universal, enthusiastic support from my fellow Democrats.”The second was his unannounced trip to Kyiv two weeks later—a risky foray into a war zone but one that, in Biden’s telling, included packed PB&J sandwiches and, as a longtime Amtrak rider, a fascination with Ukraine’s rail system. He felt that he had addressed concerns that he lacked the vigor to run for reelection.
他回忆起在2023年4月宣布再次参选之前，他的顾问们在条约室举行的“一言既出，终身负责”会议上达成一致。罗恩·克莱恩坐在他旁边的沙发上，珍·奥马利·迪伦在附近。吉尔·拜登敦促大家直言不讳。迈克·多尼隆说，他在任期间的民调一直异常稳定。“没有任何迟疑或异议，”拜登在列出与他同在房间的九个人时报告说。“我在场。”
He recounts his advisers being in agreement before his April 2023 announcement that he was running again, during a “speak now or forever hold your peace” meeting in the Treaty Room. Ron Klain sat on the couch next to him, Jen O’Malley Dillon nearby. Jill Biden urged everyone to give their unvarnished views. Mike Donilon said the polling during his presidency had been remarkably consistent. “There was no demurral or dissent,” Biden reports of the nine people he listed in the room with him. “I was in.”
他写道，当他审视自己的党派时，看到前景中有才干和野心，但显而易见，民主党最好的总统候选人仍是乔·拜登。“我不认为他们中任何人比我更强，或在2024年更有获胜机会，”他写道，语气中带有明显的防御色彩。“如果你愿意，可以否定我的评估。但我了解我所经历的过程。我做出了深思熟虑、审慎、严谨的判断。”
And he writes of how, as he surveyed his party, he saw talent and ambition on the horizon, but the best Democratic candidate for president, it was clear, remained Joe Biden. “I did not believe any one of them was a stronger candidate than me, or had a better chance of winning in 2024,” he writes, with more than a hint of defensiveness. “You can dismiss that assessment if you want. But I know the process I went through. I made a thoughtful, careful, rigorous judgment.”
他认为缺乏有力的挑战者证明了党内对他自我评估的认同。“任何因害怕而不敢参选的人，都不配当总统。”他引用了自己在初选中取得的强势胜利，尽管几乎没有遇到严肃的对手。“据可靠消息称，民主党政治界的几位大人物曾考虑参选。他们召开会议、进行民调、与捐助者和潜在工作人员交谈。如果他们认为我软弱或易受攻击，他们本会出手。但他们没有，”他写道。“媒体和评论员不断说我很弱。但每位所谓的有实力的候选人都决定不与我竞争，因为我太强大了。”
He argues that the absence of a strong challenger is proof that the party agreed with his self-assessment. “Anyone who was scared off from running has no business being president.”He cites his strong primary wins, even though he faced little serious opposition. “I had it on good authority that several big names in Democratic politics had looked at running. They held meetings and took polls and talked to donors and to potential staff. If they thought I was weak or vulnerable, they would have taken their shot. But they didn’t,” he writes. “The press and pundits kept talking about how weak I was. But every purportedly serious candidate decided not to run against me because I was too strong.”
拜登对导致其竞选不可避免走向终结的辩论几乎没有进行深入剖析。吉尔·拜登在自己的回忆录中写道，她认为丈夫当时出现了短路、可能中风，或甚至被下了药。
Biden spends surprisingly little time dissecting the debate that sent his campaign careening to its inevitable end. Jill Biden, in her own memoir, wrote that she thought her husband was short-circuiting, was having a stroke, or perhaps had been drugged.
奇怪的是，拜登没有回应妻子的猜测，甚至没有予以否认。他只是说：“我思路中断了。”仅此而已。这就是拜登所相信的——或者更确切地说，他希望世界相信的。拜登面临的问题是，那场辩论实际上在全国播出，被数百万聪明的公民观看，他们现在可能渴望他就那个关键时刻进行更深入的反思。
Strangely, Biden doesn’t address his wife’s speculation, even to dismiss it. He simply says: “I lost my train of thought.”That’s it. This is what Biden believes—or, more to the point, what he wants the world to believe. The problem for Biden is that the debate was actually broadcast nationally and seen by millions of intelligent citizens who may now crave deeper reflection from him on that consequential moment.
拜登回忆说，他大约花了五天时间准备辩论，住在戴维营的总统小屋，并与他的顾问进行模拟辩论。他当时感觉不适，但新冠病毒检测呈阴性。辩论是在长途旅行之后举行的，此前他的儿子亨特经历了艰苦的审判并被判有枪支指控罪名成立。“归根结底，他们未能击垮亨特。但如果我不承认他们从我身上夺走了一部分，那就是在撒谎，”他写道。他辩论开始前不久才到达辩论现场，并且他写道，“从一开始就感觉不对劲。”
Biden recalls having spent roughly five days preparing for the debate, staying in the presidential cabin at Camp David and doing mock sessions with his advisers. He was feeling sick, but had tested negative for COVID. The debate came after a long stretch of travel and followed the grueling trial and gun-charge convictions of his son, Hunter. “In the end, they failed to break Hunter. But I would be lying if I didn’t admit that they took a piece out of me,” he writes. He arrived at the debate hall shortly before it began, and, he writes, “It didn’t feel right from the start.”
他知道辩论进行得很糟糕，但现任总统的首场辩论很多时候并不如计划进行。他离开舞台时认为自己还会再与特朗普辩论，并且会做得更好。“很多总统都有过糟糕的辩论，”他写道。“区别在于，其他每一位总统都有机会在第二场辩论中挽回颜面。结果证明，这个机会不会留给我。”
He knew it had gone badly, but many times first debates don’t go as planned for incumbent presidents. He left the stage thinking he would be debating Trump again, and he would improve. “Lots of presidents had bad debates,” he writes. “The difference was that every other president was given the chance to redeem themselves in a second debate. As it turned out, that chance would not be available to me.”
他将退出竞选的决定归因于他自己无法控制的因素，而不是一场无情的、吞噬一切的媒体叙事，以及那些接受了这种失败主义叙事的党内领导人：“他们会说，我是否继续参选是我自己做出的决定。他们会尊重我做出的任何决定。但实际上，他们唯一会尊重的决定，就是我退出竞选的决定。”
He attributes his decision to drop out not to factors that he himself was responsible for, but to a remorseless, all-consuming media narrative, and to party leaders who bought into this defeatist narrative: “They would say that whether I stayed in the race was my decision to make. And they would respect whatever decision I made. In reality, the only decision they would respect would be my decision to exit the race.”
拜登说，前众议院议长南希·佩洛西是煽动者之一，她在白宫私下与他会面，敦促他重新考虑。“公开场合她仍在说这是我自己做出的决定。但私下里她正在幕后拼命争取当选官员和拜登代表倒戈，”他写道。参议院多数党领袖查克·舒默来到他在特拉华州的海滩别墅，恳求他做同样的事。尽管如此，拜登仍不情愿。“我并非生活在梦想世界。我当时的处境是：我赢得了民主党总统提名。
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was one of the ringleaders, Biden says, meeting with him privately at the White House to urge him to reassess. “Publicly she was still saying it was my decision to make. But privately she was working furiously behind the scenes to get elected officials and Biden delegates to defect,” he writes. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer came to his beach house in Delaware, to implore him to do the same. Still, Biden was reluctant. “I wasn’t living in a dream world. Here’s where I was living: I had won the Democratic nomination for president. And I had won it decisively,” he writes.
他写道：“而且我是以压倒性优势赢得的。”他写道：“我相信我是领导世界的最佳人选。”
“I believed I was the best person to lead the world.”
他和舒默就民调问题发生了争论，拜登回忆说，老盟友转而反对他，这让他感到很个人化。“我告诉舒默，他胆子不小（我当时可能用了不同的措辞），竟然来到我家，告诉我退出竞选，”他写道。“忠诚对我来说很重要。如果我把话给了你，我就和你站在一起。如果我说我支持你，我就支持你到底。”他最终认定自己可以继续担任候选人，但这将违背党内高层领导人和捐款人的意愿，会分裂政党。
He and Schumer argued over the polling, and Biden recounts that he took it personally that old allies were turning on him. “I told Schumer he had a lot of gumption (I may have said it differently at the time), coming to my home and telling me to get out of the race,” he writes. “Loyalty matters to me. If I give you my word, I stick with you. If I say I’m with you, I’m with you to the end.”He eventually determined that he could remain the nominee, but he would be acting against the wishes of top party leaders and donors. It would divide the party.
他请长期顾问多尼隆起草一份声明。然后拜登睡了一夜。“信不信由你，那天晚上我睡得很好，”他写道。第二天，他宣布退出竞选，然后开始给一长串盟友打电话，向他们道谢。在书中，他列出了他们的名字以及他打电话的准确时间。其中包括工会主席、州长、参议员和众议员。他下午3点09分给亚历山德拉·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯打了电话，下午3点14分给比尔·克林顿打了电话。
He asked Donilon, his longtime adviser, to draft a statement. Then Biden slept on it. “Believe it or not, I slept well that night,” he writes. The next day he announced his decision to withdraw, then began calling a long list of allies to thank them. In the book, he lists their names and the precise times he called them. There are union presidents and governors, senators and House members. He called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 3:09 p.m. and Bill Clinton at 3:14 p.m.
他回忆说，晚上7点06分给格雷琴·惠特默的电话打进了语音信箱。在他报告的众多电话中，有两个名字格外引人注目：他从未联系过佩洛西，而且，值得注意的是，他没有把奥巴马列为他打电话的人之一——奥巴马是给了他职业生涯最大机会的人。钢铁工人国际工会的主席？是的，但不是奥巴马。
His 7:06 p.m. call to Gretchen Whitmer, he recalls, went to voicemail. Two names are conspicuously absent from the many calls he reported making: He never reached out to Pelosi, and, notably, he does not list Obama, the man who gave him the biggest break of his professional life, as one of those he called. The president of Steelworkers International? Yes, but not Obama.
他写道，他坚决反对通过竞争性初选来选出接替他的人：“任何有竞争的公开角逐都会被看作试图阻止首位黑人女性副总统登上候选人名单首位，而且会分裂党。”相反，他全力支持自己的副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯作为提名人。他在很大程度上略过了哈里斯竞选的那107天，包括她不愿批评他或与他保持距离的那些时刻。“她继承了一个团结的政党。而她打造了一个充满热情的政党：卡玛拉点燃了全国的热情，”他写道。
He writes that he was firmly against a contested primary to replace him: “Any contested open fight would have been seen as an attempt to block the first Black female vice president from the top of the ticket, and it would have split the party.”Instead, he fully supported his vice president, Kamala Harris, as the nominee. He largely glosses over the 107 days of her campaign, including moments in which she was reluctant to criticize or distance herself from him. “She inherited a united party. And she created an enthusiastic one: Kamala electrified the country,” he writes.
“她是一流的候选人。她在与特朗普总统的辩论中表现得极为出色。她在竞选巡回演讲中很棒。她是一台筹款机器。我为她和她所进行的竞选感到骄傲。”
“She was a first-rate candidate. She performed masterfully in her debate with President Trump. She was great on the stump. She was a fundraising machine. I was proud of her and the campaign she ran.”
哈里斯败选后，拜登邀请他的前任兼继任者到椭圆形办公室，但这次会面让人有些不知所措。特朗普很健谈，其语气如此友好甚至谄媚，令拜登感到意外，拜登觉得特朗普可能是在糊弄他。“你知道，乔，要不是因为政治，我相信我们会成为好朋友，”拜登回忆特朗普对他说。“要不是因为政治，我们会把所有时间都花在一起打高尔夫上。”
After she lost, Biden invited his predecessor and successor to the Oval Office, but the encounter became somewhat disorienting. Trump was chatty, surprising Biden with a tone so friendly and even fawning that Biden thought Trump might be putting him on. “You know, Joe, if it weren’t for politics, I believe we’d be good friends,” Biden recalls Trump telling him. “If it weren’t for politics, we’d spend all our time golfing together.”
拜登写道，特朗普还表示，他很庆幸自己不必与拜登竞选。按照拜登的说法，他最终打断了特朗普，不明白他为什么一个劲地恭维自己，于是开始谈论全球事务。这场原定30分钟的会面持续了近两个小时。（特朗普这亲切的一面在四年前也出现过，当时特朗普在椭圆形办公室给拜登留了一封信，信中他援引历史，祝他一切顺利，并写道：“我知道你会忠于自己，忠于美国人民。”这封信写于2021年1月6日两周之后，而当时他仍在继续声称拜登实际上并没有获胜。）这本书的后记讲述了拜登去年发现自己患有一种侵袭性前列腺癌，且已转移到骨骼。
Trump, Biden writes, relayed that he was relieved to not have had to run against him. In Biden’s telling, he eventually cut Trump off, confused why he was buttering him up, and began talking about global affairs. The meeting, scheduled for 30 minutes, lasted nearly two hours. (This genial version of Trump also came across four years earlier when Trump left a letter for Biden in the Oval Office in which he channeled history, wished him well, and wrote: “I know you will be true to yourself and the American people.” It was written two weeks after January 6, 2021, and as he continued claiming Biden hadn’t actually won.) The epilogue of the book addresses Biden’s discovery last year that he has an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones.
他反驳了一些猜测，即他曾隐瞒诊断结果，以淡化其任期内关于健康或年龄的担忧——“任何人认为我会试图忽略或隐瞒正在摧残我身体的癌症，这很荒谬”——并表示他希望早些接受检测。“截至写作时，我感觉良好，”他写道。周日晚间，拜登在社交媒体上写道，他对自己健康状况有所了解，称“有些日子比其他日子好”，并且他无法参加原计划的那么多与书籍发行相关的活动。
He rebuts some speculation that he had kept the diagnosis hidden to downplay concerns about his health or age during his presidency—“For anyone to think I would try to ignore or hide a cancer ravaging my body is absurd”—and says he wishes he had been tested earlier. “As of this writing, I’m feeling good,” he writes. On Sunday night, Biden offered a glimpse into the state of his health, writing on social media that “some days are better than others” and that he won’t be able to do as many events related to the book’s release as he had once planned.
“我希望书中的文字能够自说自话，”他写道。拜登以家族中的另一句名言结束这本书，这是他在任期内经常引用的一句话，也是他在试图留在最终退出的竞选中时所坚持的信念。“小时候，每当发生不好的事情，我都可以指望我爸爸说，‘被打倒了，就站起来，’”他写道。“在我被最后一次判定出局之前，我会继续站起来。美国也会如此。”
“I’m hopeful the words on the page speak for themselves,” he wrote. Biden closes the book with another saying from his family, one that he often cited during his presidency and that he channeled while trying to stay in a race he would ultimately leave. “When I was a kid, whenever something bad would happen, I could count on my dad to say, ‘When you get knocked down, get up,’” he writes. “Until I’m counted out for the last time, I’ll keep getting up. And America will too.”
在今天发表的《人物》杂志采访中，他说，如果癌症诊断是在他在白宫期间做出的，他会辞职：“我不会继续前进，因为我不认为一个80岁的癌症患者应该竞选总统。”由于事实并非如此，他相信，“从客观角度看，我是最适合胜任这份工作的人。”值得注意的是，他在书中从未承认——即使是懊悔地或一笔带过——读者立刻就能明白的一点：如果他在2024年参选并获胜，他现在将是一个明显体弱的83岁老人，正在与一种恶性癌症抗争，同时试图履行美国总统无穷无尽的职责。
In an interview with People magazine published today, he said that if his cancer diagnosis had come while he was in the White House, he would have resigned: “I would’ve not gone forward, because I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running.“ Since that wasn’t the case, he believed, “on an objective basis I was the best-equipped person to do the job.” Remarkably, nowhere in the book he does acknowledge—even ruefully, or in passing—what the reader instantly comprehends: If he had run in 2024 and won, he would now be a visibly frail 83-year-old man, fighting a vicious form of cancer while trying to fulfill the endless responsibilities of the American presidency.