能把所有美国人都忽悠瘸了的特朗普
In the Art of the Deal, Donald Trump’s get rich quick guide, he explains how to seduce the customer.
在唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)那本快速致富指南——《交易的艺术》(Art of the Deal)中，他解释了该如何诱惑客户。
People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular, he wrote. I call it truthful hyperbole.
人们想要相信，某件东西是最大、最棒、最令人惊叹的，他写道，我把这个称为诚实的夸张。
At the presidential debate on Monday night, roughly 100m Americans will be exposed to Mr Trump’s magical thinking.
在当地时间周一晚的总统竞选辩论中，大约1亿美国人将见识到特朗普的神奇思维。
The US can be great again by electing the best dealmaker in the world.
通过选举全世界最会做交易的人当总统，美国可以再度变得伟大。
Some will see it as a con trick.
有些人将把这个视为一场骗局。
Others will be willingly gullible.
也有人将愿意轻信。
A worryingly large share will care little about his truthfulness either way.
无论哪种情况，令人担忧的是，非常多的选民将不在乎他诚实与否。
Since all politicians lie, Mr Trump could hardly be worse than Hillary Clinton.
既然政客们都说谎，那么特朗普几乎不可能比希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)还糟。
That, in purest form, is today’s voter breakdown — a world apart from the founding fathers’ informed citizenry.
以上就是当今最纯粹意义上的选民分析——他们与美国国父所处时代的洞察时局的公民截然不同。
In the hunt for the mother of all deals, Mr Trump has two key partners.
在逐鹿总统宝座（这是笔让其他所有交易都黯然失色的大买卖）的过程中，特朗普有两个关键的合作伙伴。
The first is the media.
第一个是媒体。
Conservatives believe the conventional media suffers from deep liberal bias.
保守主义者认为，传统媒体沾染了极深的自由主义偏见。
Most journalists probably are on the left by their measure.
以他们的标准衡量，大多数记者很可能属于左翼。
But that is irrelevant.
但那是无关紧要的。
Mr Trump’s genius is to grasp that television’s desperate quest for ratings outweighs any ideological leanings.
特朗普的天才之处在于，他懂得电视台对收视率的疯狂追求压倒了任何意识形态倾向。
Leslie Moonves, chairman of CBS, put it well earlier this year.
今年早些时候，哥伦比亚广播公司(CBS)董事长莱斯利•穆恩夫斯(Leslie Moonves)很好地说明了这一点。
Mr Trump’s celebrity had worked miracles on the network’s advertising revenues.
特朗普的名气极大地造福了CBS的广告收入。
It may not be good for America, he said. But it’s damn good for CBS.
这或许对美国不好，他说，但对CBS简直太好了。
In an age of ever-thinner gruel for the TV business, Mr Trump offers repeated sugar highs.
在一个电视业务日益萎缩的年代，特朗普引发了观众一波又一波的亢奋。
Monday’s record ratings will have little to do with Mrs Clinton.
周一创纪录的收视率跟希拉里没什么关系。
The reality TV star has also turned liberal media values to his advantage.
这位电视真人秀明星也让媒体的自由主义价值观反过来为己所用。
Fox News pays lip service to being even-handed.
福克斯新闻(Fox News)口头上支持不偏不倚。
CNN, on the other hand, balances liberal voices with credible opposing ones.
另一方面，有线电视新闻网(CNN)也用有分量的反对意见平衡了自由主义的声音。
At a time of acute polarisation, such false equivalence is gold dust to Mr Trump.
在一个分化严重的时代，这种虚假的对等对特朗普非常宝贵。
He may run a pay-for-play charitable foundation but so do the Clintons.
他或许管理着一家收钱办事(pay-for-play)的慈善基金会，但克林顿夫妇也一样。
He may refuse to release his tax returns.
他或许拒绝公布他个人的纳税申报单。
But Mrs Clinton hid a private email server.
但希拉里隐藏了一个私人邮件服务器。
After a while, everyone seems equally bad.
一段时间之后，每个人看上去都一样糟糕。
In reality, the Clinton Foundation raises billions for philanthropic causes and its published accounts meet industry standards.
事实上，克林顿基金会(Clinton Foundation)为慈善事业募集了数十亿元善款，而且其公布的账目是达到行业标准的。
Mr Trump, on the other hand, has used his to make political donations, buy portraits of himself and settle law suits.
相反，特朗普则一直利用他的基金会进行政治捐款、购买他本人的画像以及了结官司。
It is possible details of his serial self-dealing — painstakingly chronicled in the Washington Post — will sway some voters.
他的一系列自我交易(self-dealing)——《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)不遗余力地按时间顺序列出了这些交易——的细节可能会动摇一些选民。
But they will have to switch off their TVs first.
但首先，他们将必须关掉电视。
Short of an Edward Snowden-type leak from the Internal Revenue Service, voters will never see his tax returns.
如果美国国税局(IRS)不发生爱德华•斯诺登(Edward Snowden)式的泄密事件，选民们绝不会看到特朗普的纳税申报单。
Mr Trump’s other key ally is public cynicism, which is also fuelling the media’s ratings crisis.
特朗普的另一个关键同盟，是公众怀疑一切的态度。这种态度也在加剧媒体的收视率危机。
In 1954, the career of Joseph McCarthy, the senator behind the red scare witch-hunts, came to a sudden end in a televised hearing when an attorney proclaimed: Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or recklessness.
1954年，在一次电视播放的听证会上，主导了红色恐怖追查迫害行动的参议员约瑟夫•麦卡锡(Joseph McCarthy)的职业生涯戛然而止。当时，一名律师宣告：直到这一刻，参议员，我想我从未真正估量过你的残忍或轻率。
Have you no sense of decency, sir?
先生，你难道没有一点起码的正派吗？
It is hard to imagine what — or who — could publicly shame Mr Trump.
我们很难想象出，什么事情——或者哪个人——能当众羞辱到特朗普。
The gatekeepers have gone.
守门人已经不在了。
In those days, figures like Walter Cronkite, the legendary news anchor, could turn opinion with a morally charged soliloquy.
在以往，传奇式新闻主持人沃尔特•克朗凯特(Walter Cronkite)等人物，可以用一段拷问道德良心的独白改变观众观点。
Mr Cronkite’s authority drew from a middle ground that no longer exists.
克朗凯特的权威来自中立。
It hinged on the public’s trust that it was possible to be objective.
现在这种中立已不存在了。这种权威有赖于公众相信它可以做到客观公正。
In the absence of such trust, the best Mr Cronkite’s successors can do is resort to a hollow he said, she said neutrality — or drop the pretence altogether.
在这种信任丧失的情况下，克朗凯特的后辈能做的最多也只不过是诉诸双方各执一词的那种毫无意义的中立——或者干脆不再假装中立。
This, too, Mr Trump plays like a violin.
这一点也被特朗普姿势纯熟地为己所用了。
Will it work on Monday night? Quite possibly.
这一套会在周一晚上奏效吗？相当有可能。
Most of today’s TV anchors say it is the other candidate’s job, not the moderator’s, to correct factual errors.
如今多数的电视主持人都会说，纠正事实性错误是另一位候选人的工作，而不是主持人的工作。
Their favourite analogy is a sporting one in which best game is where the umpire’s role goes unnoticed.
他们最喜欢用体育裁判来类比自己的角色——没人注意到裁判的角色的比赛，是最棒的比赛。
But the comparison does not stand up.
但这个类比是站不住脚的。
No soccer game would last a minute if it were up to the players to call out the opposing team’s fouls.
如果由球员来判断对方球队犯规，那么没有哪场足球比赛能持续一分钟。
A fair referee will discipline players on merit.
公正的裁判会根据球员表现作出判罚。
If it means one team gets six yellow cards and the other only two, so be it.
如果这意味着一方拿到6张黄牌而另一方只拿到2张，那也只能这样。
Nor will a referee be intimidated by the booing of the offending team’s fans.
裁判也不会被犯规球队球迷的嘘声吓倒。
By all accounts, Lester Holt, the NBC anchor, who will moderate the first debate, will try to be fair-minded.
一切信息显示，将主持第一场辩论的美国全国广播公司(NBC)主持人莱斯特•霍尔特(Lester Holt)会尽量不偏不倚。
But Mr Trump is playing games with his head.
但特朗普玩得聪明。
Mr Holt is a Democrat and therefore biased, he says, although voter records suggest that Mr Holt is a Republican.
他说，霍尔特是民主党人，因此会存有偏见——尽管选民记录表明霍尔特是共和党人。
The whole event — and the general election — is probably rigged in Mrs Clinton’s favour, he claims.
特朗普宣称，整场辩论——乃至整个大选——都很可能受到操纵、偏向希拉里。
It is worth marvelling at how well Mr Trump has played a conventionally weak hand.
特朗普如此漂亮地把常规而言的弱点转化为了优势，简直令人叹服。
He has branded CNN, which devotes just four per cent of its Clinton coverage to her policies — a third of what it has allocated to her email scandal — as biased. He calls it the Clinton News Network.
CNN对希拉里的报道中只有4%是讲她的政策，三分之一都在讲希拉里的邮件丑闻，而特朗普却称CNN带有偏见，称CNN为希拉里新闻网（Clinton News Network，首字母缩写也是CNN——译者注）。
The leading outlets devoted more airtime to Mr Trump’s assertion that Mrs Clinton created Isis, than to her policies for defeating it.
主要媒体花了更多时间报道特朗普断言希拉里创造了伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国(ISIS)，而不是希拉里提出的击败ISIS的政策。
The first was Trumpian invention.
前者是特朗普捏造的。
The second is serious business.
后者是一件严肃的事。
But Mr Trump grasps a truth about today’s low-trust democracy that still eludes others.
但特朗普知晓了如今缺乏信任的民主的真相，而其他人仍然不得而知。
People want to be entertained.
人们想要获得娱乐。
I play to people’s fantasies, Mr Trump wrote in his best-seller.
我迎合人们的幻想，特朗普曾在他的畅销书中写道。
On that playing field, Mrs Clinton’s edge disappears.
在这个赛场上，希拉里优势尽失。
As a species we are always vulnerable to deception.
容易受骗是人性的弱点。
Remember those Weimar types in early 1930s Germany? None of them could hold an audience.
还记得上世纪30年代初德国那些魏玛(Weimar)式的政客吗？他们当中没有一个能吸引住听众。
