丹佛 —— 争夺下一任民主党总统提名的竞争已经开始，开场是一场求同存异的盛会。
DENVER — The race for the next Democratic presidential nomination has begun, with a festival of agreement.
宾夕法尼亚州州长乔什·夏皮罗在“下一步”大会上表示，选民要求的是行动，而不是“肤浅的试金石，或者我们在某个政治光谱上的位置”。密歇根州参议员埃莉萨·斯洛特金解释说，选民不想要“边际式的改变”，民主党人也不是在进行“进步派对温和派”的斗争。而皮特·布蒂吉格则注意到，民主党人正在借用他的配方。他们想利用新获得的多数优势，通过削减成本、支持家庭的法案，然后让选民相信，他们绝不会回到特朗普之前的新自由主义时代。
There was Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, telling the What’s Next conference that voters demanded action, not “shallow litmus tests or where we fall on some political spectrum.”There was Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, explaining that voters did not want “marginal change” and Democrats weren’t in a battle of “progressive versus moderate.”And there was Pete Buttigieg, who’d noticed the Democrats borrowing his formula. They wanted to pass cost-cutting, pro-family bills with their new majority, then convince voters that they would never go back to pre-Trump neoliberalism.
“听起来不错，容易说，”布蒂吉格说，“每个人都觉得自己已经赞同这一点了。”
“It sounds good. It’s easy to say,” said Buttigieg. “Everybody thinks they already agree with this.”
这次中期选举后的大会由“多数派民主党人”组织，是温和派捐助者为期两年投资的回报。在策略师和民选官员抵达丹佛、领取挂绳的两年前，风险投资家塞思·伦敦曾发布一份备忘录，论述新的候选人和媒体投资如何能引导民主党远离“种族和群体认同政治”，转向“让更多美国人繁荣”。今年的民主党大胜裹挟了各类候选人——既有接入“多数派民主党人”网络的，也有担心这是大金主为击败民粹左派而设下的圈套的。
The post-midterms conference, organized by Majority Democrats, was a payoff of a two-year investment by moderate donors. Two years before strategists and elected officials landed in Denver and grabbed their lanyards, the venture capitalist Seth London circulated a memo about how new candidate and media investments could steer the party away from “race and group-based identity politics,” and toward “prosperity for more Americans.”This year’s Democratic landslide carried along every kind of candidate —the ones plugged into the Majority Democrats network, and the ones who worried it was a big-money ploy to defeat the populist left.
但会议捧红了那些想要建立超级多数、与大型科技公司和环保律师作战的候选人。一些捐助者加入了进来；想让他们左转的捐助者则被排除在外。
But the conference elevated the candidates who wanted to build a supermajority, battling big tech and environmental attorneys. Some donors were in; the donors who wanted them to move left were out.
“告诉我们你将停止批准哪些想法，那些违背常识或行不通的想法，”马萨诸塞州民主党籍众议员杰克·奥钦克洛斯说，他是出身名门的民主党人，担任多数党民主党人政治行动委员会主席。“告诉我们你将挑战哪些特权，即使你的捐赠者或盟友反对。”
“Tell us which ideas you’ll stop giving permission to, the ones that defy common sense or didn’t work,” said Rep. Jake Auchincloss, the pedigreed Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the Majority Democrats PAC. “Tell us which privileges you’ll confront, even if your donors or allies object.”
捐赠者确实懂得如何举办派对。“下一步”大会类似于那种资金充裕、媒体友好的会议，许多民主党人羡慕右翼举办的此类活动，比如由“转折点行动”组织的为期多日的“美国节”。
The donors did know how to throw a party. What’s Next resembled the sort of well-funded, media-friendly conferences that many Democrats have envied on the right, like the multi-day “AmericaFest” put on by Turning Point Action.
这是一场属于民主党主流的派对，与会者多为最有可能为中左派总统候选人工作的幕僚，而非为纽约州民主党籍众议员亚历山德拉·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯工作的人。两天来，丹佛河北艺术区的几个街区被围起来供民主党人、选民以及询问他们是否竞选总统的记者使用。（他们的回答都是“还没定”之类的变体。）会上也有冲突，但主要局限于谁应领导民主党新的国会多数派之争。
周四宣布挑战参议院民主党领袖舒默的马里兰州民主党籍参议员克里斯·范霍伦登台时，全场鼓掌10秒，随后他解释了参选原因。
This was a party for the Democratic mainstream, the staffers most likely to work for center-left presidential candidates than for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY. For two days, blocks of Denver’s River North Art District were cordoned off for Democrats, the people who elected them, and the reporters asking if they were running for president. (Their answers were variations on “not yet.“) There was conflict, but it was largely limited to the argument over who should lead Democrats’ new congressional majorities. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who announced his challenge to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday, paused for 10 seconds of applause when he took the stage and explained why he was running.
“不同背景、来自我党不同部位的候选人——他们竞选时基于一个惊人相似的纲领，”范霍伦说。“他们没有沿用‘进步派对温和派’这种陈旧的华盛顿标签。他们竞选的纲领是经济民粹主义信息，承诺为打工者而战，对抗被操纵的经济和政治体制。”许多获胜者现身丹佛，如得克萨斯州当选参议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科和爱荷华州当选州长罗布·桑德。
“Candidates from different backgrounds and different parts of our party – they ran on a strikingly similar platform,” said Van Hollen. “They didn’t run on the tired Washington labels of progressive versus moderate. They ran on an economic populist message, on a commitment to fight for working people and take on a rigged economic and political system.”Many of those winners showed up in Denver, like Texas Sen.-elect James Talarico and Iowa Gov.-elect Rob Sand.
他们分享了竞选路上的故事，讲述如何倾听共和党选民的关切，并愿与有意愿者合作降低物价。但暗示是，民主党应优先建设住房、降低账单、扩大医保，然后再做其他事。并非所有与会者都表示赞同。
They shared road stories of how they listened to Republican concerns, and would work with the willing ones to lower prices. But it was implied that Democrats should focus on building homes, lowering bills, and expanding health care before they did anything else. Not every attendee agreed.
“组织者们希望搭起一个大帐篷，一个足够大、甚至能邀请像我这样的反建制派人士的帐篷，”加利福尼亚州民主党众议员罗·坊纳说，民主党人将他视为参议员伯尼·桑德斯在初选中争夺选民的竞争对手。“大帐篷不能意味着我们为了政治权宜之计而稀释原则。”
除了坊纳之外，可能的总统候选人并没有完全这样做。密歇根州参议员竞选失败的马洛里·麦克莫罗曾获得多数党民主党人的支持，她告诉塞马弗，她的党刚刚表明，它可以在初选中进行激烈的争论，然后在基本问题上团结起来。
“The organizers here want a big tent, one big enough to even invite anti-establishment voices like me,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Ca., who Democrats see as a competitor for a Sen. Bernie Sanders lane in the primary. “A big tent cannot mean that we water down principle for political expediency.“Apart from Khanna, the likely presidential candidates didn’t quite do that. Mallory McMorrow, who Majority Democrats supported in her unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid in Michigan, told Semafor that her party had just shown that it could have a loud primary argument and then unite on the basics.
“反腐败、将金钱排除在政治之外、保护民主、结束战争，”麦克莫罗说。“分歧都在边缘问题上。”
“It’s anti-corruption, getting money out of politics, protecting democracy, ending wars,” said McMorrow. “The disagreements are around the edges.”
将有许多民主党“候选人集会”，但我关注的是“下一步”是如何建立起来的，因为这是两年努力的成果，旨在确保2028年的初选与2020年的初选有所不同。民主党策略师普遍认为，他们上一次公开的初选由左翼组织主导，这些组织要求候选人当面、面对面、在镜头前承诺支持他们的理念。
There will be many Democratic “cattle calls,” but I am focusing on how What’s Next was built because it’s the fruit of a two-year effort to ensure that the 2028 primary plays out differently than the 2020 primary. There is widespread agreement among Democratic strategists that their last open primary was defined by left-wing organizations that wanted candidates to commit to their ideas, eyeball to eyeball, on camera.
这意味着由计划生育协会和前进组织等团体组织的论坛，以及更进步的劳工工会，如服务员工国际工会。这意味着美国公民自由联盟询问候选人是否承诺将联邦监狱人口减少一半，以及收获运动组织在乔·拜登自己的活动中对他进行跟踪盘问，直到他承诺停止大多数驱逐行动。
That meant forums organized by groups like Planned Parenthood and MoveOn, and more progressive labor unions like SEIU. That meant the ACLU asking candidates if they would commit to cutting the federal prison population in half, and Movimiento Cosecha bird-dogging Joe Biden at his own events until he committed to stopping most deportations.
如果左翼认为多数党民主党人是试图窃取他们最强有力的信息并抛弃其余部分，那么他们是对的。丹佛的经济民粹主义比他们可能认为的更加真诚，但它反对去增长，支持许可改革；对单一支付者医疗保健持怀疑态度，但支持朝着“全民”医疗保健采取渐进步骤；基本上，正处于民主党国会党团的甜蜜点上。
If the left sees Majority Democrats as an effort to swipe their strongest messaging and junk the rest, they’re right. The economic populism in Denver was more sincere than they might think, but it is against degrowth and for permitting reform; skeptical of single-payer health care, but for incremental steps to “universal” health care; basically, right in the sweet spot of the Democrats’ congressional caucuses.
目前，舒默与范霍伦之间的竞争是意识形态与优先事项之争的主战场。2028年总统候选人目前倾向于寻求共识。左翼并未让党内其他派系不战而胜地采纳其主张。
Right now the Schumer-Van Hollen contest is where the fights over ideology and priorities are happening. The 2028 candidates would prefer to agree, for now. The left was not letting the rest of the party adopt its ideas without a fight.
在“What's Next”大会召开前夕，三家曾批评民主党主流派的左倾媒体——《杠杆报》（The Lever）、《拦截者》（The Intercept）和《美国展望》（The American Prospect）的记者宣布，他们被拒之门外。最终所有人都获准入场，成为那些不想在欢庆时光中被尖锐提问打扰的捐款人眼中的“第一修正案麻烦”。
In the run-up to What’s Next, reporters from three left-leaning outlets that had been critical of Majority Democrats – The Lever, The Intercept, and The American Prospect – announced that they’d been denied access. All were eventually allowed in, becoming a First Amendment nuisance for donors who didn’t want to interrupt happy hours with hard questions.
周五，四名抗议者闯入使命舞厅（Mission Ballroom），打断了会上最有实权的民主党人、众议院民主党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯的发言。当自由派评论员杰西卡·塔洛夫询问这位极可能成为众议院议长的人其议程时，他们一个接一个站起，指责他对种族灭绝负有共谋责任。
And on Friday, four protesters accessed the Mission Ballroom to interrupt the most powerful Democrat at the conference, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. As liberal pundit Jessica Tarlov asked the likely House Speaker about his agenda, they jumped up, one after another, accusing him of complicity in genocide.
一名“气候反抗”（Climate Defiance）组织的抗议者在被保安拖出时奋力挣扎，转身对着记者预留的看台座位大喊“去你妈的！”丹佛“日出运动”（Sunrise Movement）31岁的组织者妮可·希亚·尼布勒表示，她打断杰弗里斯是因为“大会很清楚地表明，强硬派进步人士不获邀以与中间派同等的规模参与。”
A protester with Climate Defiance, pushing back at the bouncers who dragged him out, turned to the stadium seating reserved for reporters and shouted “f— you all!“Nicole Shea Niebler, a 31-year-old organizer with the Sunrise Movement in Denver, said that she interrupted Jeffries because “the conference made it pretty clear that strong progressives are not invited to participate at the scale that centrists were.”
这限制了辩论的边界，在一个媒体意见领袖开始界定2028年初选议题的房间里，鲜少谈论气候，完全不谈外交政策，当然更没有任何关于加沙的讨论。尼布勒预料到会被带走，但对杰弗里斯在范霍伦及其对参议院领导层的挑战发言前先行发言感到失望。“那才是我真正想看的一场。”
That limited the bounds of debate in a room where media taste-makers were starting to decide what the 2028 primary was about; little talk of climate, none of foreign policy, certainly nothing about Gaza. Niebler expected to be pulled out, but was disappointed that Jeffries spoke before Van Hollen and his challenge to the Senate leadership. “That was the one I actually wanted to see.”