民粹主义要的是惩罚

I’ve been trying to understand why people vote populist so, among other things, I recently began following the Trump-supporting Breitbart News on Twitter. I had expected to encounter triumphant joy. After all, Breitbart’s man has a unique chance to remake America. But instead, Breitbart’s dominant tone is the sneer. Many of the tweets mock pundits and celebrities who say anything leftie. For instance, when actor Chris Evans rants about Trump, Breitbart tweets a gleeful loudly crying face emoji. Another big category of tweets gloats about immigrants accused of crimes. Above a story about a “six-time deportee” Mexican in Texas arrested for drunk-driving, Breitbart breaks into song: “ Wall, wall, wall your south, gently by the Rio ”.

我近来在试图理解为何人们会把票投给民粹主义者，为此，我尝试了若干办法，包括最近开始在Twitter上关注支持特朗普的Breitbart News。我原本预期会目睹一种胜利的喜悦。毕竟，Breitbart支持的那个人拥有了重塑美国的独一无二的机遇。然而事实并非如此，Breitbart的整体基调是各种冷嘲热讽。该网站发的许多推文都在嘲笑发表任何左翼言论的专家和名人。比如，当演员克里斯?埃文斯(Chris Evans)慷慨激昂地表达他对特朗普的不满时，Breitbart在Twitter上发了一个幸灾乐祸的“大哭”emoji表情符号。还有一大类推文对被控犯罪的移民幸灾乐祸。在转发有关德克萨斯一名“曾被六次驱逐出境”的墨西哥人因醉驾被捕的报道时，Breitbart唱起了歌：“墙，墙，在南方竖起墙，温柔地沿着格兰德河旁。”

Much less energy is spent plugging Trump’s plans. In fact, Breitbart’s main current policy drive is to convince Republicans to keep Obamacare’s health coverage for poorer Americans.

Breitbart的Twitter账号放在宣传特朗普各项计划上的精力就少得多了。事实上，Breitbart当前在政策问题上的主要目标是，说服共和党人不让美国穷人享受奥巴马医改(Obamacare)的医保覆盖。

At first I was baffled. If your guy runs the US, who cares about actors or small-time Mexican lawbreakers? But I have gradually realised that populism isn’t so much about finding solutions. It promises something different, and possibly more appealing: punishment.

起初我大惑不解。你们支持的那个人都已经执掌美国了，谁还关心那些演员或犯了法的墨西哥小人物？不过，我逐渐认识到民粹主义在乎的不是找到解决方案。它承诺的是某种不同的、也许更吸引人的东西：惩罚。

“Penal populism” has its roots in the early 1990s, explain criminologist John Pratt and legal scholar Michelle Miao. Back then, English-speaking countries got “tough on crime” by locking up more people. Liberals often retorted that this wouldn’t reduce crime. However, they misunderstood the populist impulse. Populists didn’t expect to solve crime; punishment itself was the point. Making somebody else suffer is satisfying, explains Princeton anthropologist Didier Fassin. Since the 1990s, voters’ anxiety has shifted from crime to the “mass movement of peoples”, write Pratt and Miao. In fact, this movement has become conflated with crime: Trump equates Mexicans with rapists, and refugees with terrorists. Naturally, these people require punishment.

根据犯罪学家约翰?普拉特(John Pratt)和法学学者苗苗(Michelle Miao)的解释，“刑罚民粹主义(penal populism)”要回溯至上世纪90年代初。当时，英语国家通过把更多人关进牢里“严惩犯罪”。当时自由派人士时常反驳称，这么做不会减少犯罪。然而，他们误解了这种民粹主义冲动。民粹主义者并不指望解决犯罪，惩罚本身才是关键所在。普林斯顿(Princeton)人类学家迪迪埃?法桑(Didier Fassin)指出，让他人痛苦能带来满足感。普拉特和苗苗写道，自上世纪90年代以来，选民焦虑的对象已从犯罪转向“大规模人员迁徙”。事实上，这种人员迁徙已经和犯罪合而为一：特朗普就把墨西哥人等同于强奸犯，难民等同于恐怖分子。自然，这些人必须受到惩罚。

But “liberal elites” do too. There’s a straight line from harsher prison sentences to the Trumpist “Lock her up!” chant about Hillary Clinton.

不过，“自由派精英”也必须受到惩罚。从更严厉的量刑到特朗普支持者“把她（希拉里?克林顿(Hillary Clinton)）关进牢里！”的口号之间，是存在直接联系的。

All populist movements now offer some version of “Lock her up!”. Pim Siegers, a village councillor for the far-left Dutch Socialist Party, told me that when he tried to convince people that the populist Geert Wilders wouldn’t solve their problems, they often replied: “We know. But ‘they’ — the elite — don’t like him.” Voting populist is often simply a way to punish elites. One campaign poster during last year’s Brexit referendum urged, beneath a picture of the grinning politicians David Cameron and George Osborne: “Wipe the smile off their faces. Vote Leave.” No matter that voting Leave might make you worse off; at least it would hurt the elite too. Similarly, many poor Americans wanted to abolish Obamacare chiefly to punish Barack Obama.

如今，所有民粹主义运动都在某种程度上跟“把她关进牢里！”的口号类似。极左的荷兰社会党(Dutch Socialist Party)的一名村议员皮姆?西格斯(Pim Siegers)曾告诉我，当他试图说服人们民粹主义者海尔特?维尔德斯(Geert Wilders)不会解决他们的问题时，他们往往回答说：“我们知道。但‘他们’——那些精英——不喜欢他。”投票给民粹主义者往往只是惩罚精英人士的一种方式。去年英国退欧公投期间，有一张宣传海报在咧嘴笑着的戴维?卡梅伦(David Cameron)和乔治?奥斯本(George Osborne)照片下面醒目地写道：“让他们笑不出来。投票给退欧。”投票给退欧会不会让你的生活变惨是无关紧要的，至少这么做也会让精英人士痛苦。与此类似，许多贫穷的美国人之所以想废除“奥巴马医改”(Obamacare)，主要是为了惩罚巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)。

Liberals still often delude themselves that today’s political battle is about which side has better solutions. When Trump proposes killing off the National Endowment for the Arts, liberals counter that the NEA costs taxpayers a pittance (less, for instance, than Trump’s weekend trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort). But smart policymaking isn’t the point. Trashing the NEA punishes liberals.

自由派人士仍然时常误以为，今天的政治斗争拼的是哪一方有更好的解决方案。当特朗普提议撤销国家艺术基金会（National Endowment for the Arts，简称NEA）时，自由派人士反驳说，NEA花费的纳税人的钱少之又少——举例来说，还没有特朗普周末赴海湖庄园(Mar-a-Lago)度假村的开销大。然而，明智的决策并不是关键所在。关键在于撤销NEA将会惩罚自由派人士。

Populist leaders act out revenge fantasies for people who feel slighted. Hence that quintessential populist persona (which Trump incarnates): the troll. Trump being Trump, he sometimes turns the dial up to 11 and goes from punishment to sadism, as in his odes to waterboarding.

民粹主义领导人将那些感觉受到轻视的人们的复仇幻想变成现实。因此就出现了那种典型的民粹主义角色（特朗普就是代表）：喷子。特朗普这个人就是这样，他有时候会走极端，逾越惩罚的边界，变为施虐狂——正如他对水刑的赞美所示。

The joy of punishment goes back to the Old Testament, but Randy Newman captured it beautifully in his 1988 satirical song “I Want You To Hurt Like I Do” (“One thing we all have in common/ And it’s something everyone can understand/ All over the world sing along… ”). Newman wrote the song as a counter to “We Are the World”, the liberal-solutions anthem.

惩罚的快乐可回溯至《旧约全书》(Old Testament)。不过，在其1988年的讽刺歌曲《我希望你像我一样痛》(I Want You To Hurt Like I Do)中，兰迪?纽曼(Randy Newman)对这种快乐做了完美的描述：“有一样东西我们所有人都有/这样东西每个人都能理解/全世界都一起唱和……(I Want You To Hurt Like I Do” (“One thing we all have in common/ And it’s something everyone can understand/ All over the world sing along…)”纽曼创作这首歌，是为了反对《天下一家》(We Are the World)——歌颂自由派解决方案的一首歌。

American conservatives understand the joy of punishment. They promise to punish people who make “bad choices”. If you steal or have an abortion, conservatives want to lock you up; and if you can’t afford healthcare, they won’t let you have it.

美国保守主义者理解惩罚的快乐。他们发誓要惩罚做出“错误选择”的人。如果你偷盗或堕胎，保守主义者想把你关进牢里。如果你买不起医疗保险，他们不会让你享有医疗保障。

Today’s PC college students also offer punishment. When a rightwing speaker comes to campus, like Charles Murray visiting Middlebury College this month, they try to silence or attack him. It’s satisfying.

如今，讲究政治正确的大学生也会施加惩罚。当右翼人士来到学校发表演讲，就像查尔斯?默里(Charles Murray)在3月访问明德学院(Middlebury College)时那样，大学生试图让演讲发表不成或攻击来宾。这么做带来满足感。

Leftist political parties used to try to hurt people too. The Bolsheviks put aristocrats up against the wall, and, for decades afterwards, the left promised to soak the rich. However, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton ended that in the 1990s. Nowadays liberal parties don’t do much hating. They might promise to keep out some immigrants or lock up criminals, but they do so regretfully. Mostly, they offer small, uninspiring solutions to people’s problems. But few believe liberal solutions any more.

左翼政党过去也试图让人痛苦。布尔什维克曾把贵族逼入绝境，而在之后的数十年里，左翼人士一直发誓劫富济贫。不过，托尼?布莱尔(Tony Blair)和比尔?克林顿(Bill Clinton)在上世纪90年代结束了这种状况。如今，自由派政党没有太多的憎恨情绪。他们也许会发誓要把部分移民挡在国门外、或把犯罪分子关进牢里，但他们是带着遗憾的情绪这么做的。通常，他们会为人们的问题提供小的、没意思的解决方案。然而，相信自由派解决方案的人没有几个了。

By contrast, populist promises of punishment are credible. True, Trump cannot punish everyone he wants to: judges have blocked his “Muslim ban”, and Mexico won’t pay for the wall. Still, he is deporting poor Hispanic mothers and humiliating journalists. Anyway, his presidency itself is a daily punishment for liberals. Who needs solutions when you can make people hurt like you do?

相反，民粹主义的惩罚承诺则是可信的。没错，特朗普无法惩罚他想惩罚的每个人：法官已封杀了他的“穆斯林禁令”，墨西哥也不会为修墙付账。然而，他仍然在将贫穷的拉丁裔母亲驱逐出境，仍然在侮辱记者。不管怎么说，他当总统本身每一天都是对自由派的惩罚。如果你能让别人像你一样痛，谁还需要解决问题的方案？

Happily for American liberals, they have now found their own version of populist rage. They have finally identified someone they want to punish: Trump.

对美国自由派人士来说，开心的是他们现在找到了自身版本的民粹主义愤怒。他们最终发现了他们想要惩罚的人——特朗普。