不堪设想的唐纳德特朗普总统
There is nothing surprising about Donald Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin.
唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)敬佩弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)，这没有什么让人惊奇的。
The would-be US president and the Russian leader share an authoritarian bent.
这位美国总统候选人和俄罗斯领导人都有一种威权倾向。
They disdain multilateral engagement in favour of the raw politics of power.
他们蔑视多边接触，喜欢原始的强权政治。
Above all, they are transactional.
最重要的是，他们都是交易型的人。
Deals are to be shaped by narrow definitions of national interest, unconstrained by international rules or shared values.
协议将受到狭隘定义的国家利益的影响，不受国际规则或公认价值观的制约。
Mr Putin wants to erase the humiliation of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
普京想抹掉苏联垮台带来的屈辱感。
Mr Trump promises to make America great again.
特朗普承诺让美国再次伟大。
The reason for the Russian leader’s bad personal relationship with Barack Obama is the US president’s wounding refusal to indulge the fantasy of superpower parity.
俄罗斯领导人跟巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)的个人关系很差，因为美国总统拒绝让普京陶醉于两个超级大国平起平坐的幻想，令他受伤。
Perhaps Mr Trump has the better understanding of Russian psychology.
或许特朗普更懂得俄罗斯人的心理。
He never ceases to praise Mr Putin as a strong and decisive leader.
他一直称赞普京是一个坚强果断的领导人。
The Republican party’s contender for the White House is not alone in cosying up to the Kremlin.
向克里姆林宫示好的，并不只有这位美国总统候选人。
Populists across Europe — Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France, Nigel Farage’s UK Independence party and the fascist Jobbik and Golden Dawn in Hungary and Greece respectively — have all tipped their hats to Moscow.
整个欧洲的民粹主义者——马琳•勒庞(Marine Le Pen)所属的法国国民阵线(National Front)、奈杰尔•法拉奇(Nigel Farage)所属的英国独立党(UKIP)、匈牙利的法西斯主义尤比克党(Jobbik)和希腊的金色黎明党(Golden Dawn)——都向莫斯科方面表达过敬意。
Mr Putin also has sympathisers on the left.
普京在左翼阵营也有支持者。
Britain’s Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is more comfortable denouncing US imperialism than challenging Russian revanchism.
英国工党(Labour)领袖杰里米•科尔宾(Jeremy Corbyn)更愿意谴责美国的帝国主义，而不愿挑战俄罗斯的复仇主义。
Until recently the foreign policy establishment was quietly preparing for a Hillary Clinton presidency.
直到不久以前，外交政策领域的体制内人士一直在悄悄地为希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)当选总统做准备。
Mr Trump’s candidacy was a nightmare it would surely wake up from on November 9.
特朗普成为候选人是一场噩梦，这场梦注定会在11月9日醒来。
The mood has changed.
情绪已发生了变化。
As the polls have tightened, Republicans and Democrats have begun to imagine Mr Trump as commander-in-chief.
随着民调支持率差距的拉近，共和党人和民主党人都开始想象特朗普成为总司令的情形。
A dark quip among US generals — that they would remove the circuit boards before handing over the so-called nuclear football — no longer seems quite so amusing.
美国将军们当中的一个黑色俏皮话——他们在移交所谓核足球（美国总统授权发动核攻击所用的手提箱——译者注）之前会把电路板取下来——不再显得特别好笑了。
The fears are that the shy Trump supporters may not be showing up in the polls, that antipathy to Mrs Clinton could see centrists stay at home, and that the resolve of white working-class voters to punish the elites could overwhelm Mr Obama’s winning coalition of educated whites, Hispanics and African Americans.
人们担心，害羞的特朗普支持者或许没有反映在民调数字中，对希拉里的厌恶可能让一些持中间立场者呆在家里，白人工人阶级选民惩罚精英的决心会压倒当年帮助奥巴马取胜的受过教育的白人、西语裔和非洲裔美国人的联盟。
Faced with compelling evidence of Mr Trump’s mendacity, misogyny and racism, too many people reply that he doesn’t really mean all that stuff.
面对特朗普表现出的撒谎、厌女症和种族主义的确凿证据，太多人的回答是，他并不真是那个意思。
The organising fact for the rest of the world is that the US is the only nation that matters just about everywhere.
在世界其他地区看来，基本事实是美国是唯一在世界各地都具有重要性的国家。
It is no longer the hyperpuissance of the 1990s and has lost the appetite to remake the world, but the capacity of a thin-skinned, shoot-from-the-hip president to wreak havoc is chilling.
美国不再是1990年代那个超级强国，也失去了重塑世界的意愿，但如果一位易怒、做事鲁莽的总统上台，那么其造成破坏的能力是令人恐惧的。
A lot of people in Washington are trying to persuade themselves that the checks and balances in the system would restrain him.
在华盛顿，很多人在努力劝服自己，美国体制中的制衡机制将对他构成约束。
Judging from my conversations this week, they are not succeeding in the task.
从我最近的谈话判断，他们在这项任务上没有成功。
The obvious fear is that a temperamentally unstable president Trump would lash out in a crisis.
人们显然担忧的是，气质上不稳定的特朗普总统在危机期间将会失控。
Robert Gates, the Republican former US defence secretary, says simply that he is unfit to be commander-in-chief.
共和党人、前国防部长罗伯特•盖茨(Robert Gates)简要地说，他不适合担任总司令。
Mr Trump’s reaction to the latest bomb outrage in New York fitted the pattern.
特朗普对不久前纽约发生的爆炸事件的反应符合这个模式。
The US had to knock the hell out of them … do something serious over there — them being indeterminate and over there being the Middle East.
美国必须痛打他们……在那里认真地做些事——他们不知道指谁，在那里指的是中东。
The bigger danger lies in Mr Trump’s promise to withdraw — to tear up trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, throw up trade barriers against China, repudiate the Paris climate change agreement and the nuclear deal with Iran, and abdicate responsibility for the security of east Asia and Europe.
更大的危险在于特朗普做出的撤退承诺——撕毁北美自贸协定(NAFTA)等协议、建立针对中国的贸易壁垒，拒绝批准巴黎气候变化协议和与伊朗达成的核协议，放弃保卫东亚与欧洲安全的责任。
Mr Trump’s policies are shot through with contradictions but one constant drumbeat is his belligerent isolationism.
特朗普的政策相互矛盾，但一个不变的主题是他好战的孤立主义。
America will go it alone.
美国将会单干。
Hyper-realism, some call it.
有些人称之为超现实主义。
Dangerous is a better word.
一个更确切的词是危险。
The present global order — the liberal, rules-based system established in 1945 and expanded after the end of the cold war — is under unprecedented strain.
当前全球秩序——1945年建立并在冷战结束后扩大的自由主义的、以规则为基础的制度——正在承受前所未有的压力。
Globalisation is in retreat.
全球化正在后退。
At a conference in New York organised by the US branch of the Ditchley Foundation I heard a distinguished American elder statesman remark that he has never known a period when the world had been simultaneously buffeted by so many upheavals and crises.
在纽约一场由迪奇雷基金会(Ditchley Foundation)美国分会组织的会议上，我听到美国一位杰出的老年政治家表示，他从不知道有哪段时期，世界同时受到这么多巨变和危机的冲击。
The list is a familiar one.
这是一份大家熟悉的清单。
Mr Putin is trying to redraw borders in Europe, the Middle East is in flames, European unity is fracturing, jihadi terrorism is spreading, pluralism is challenged by authoritarianism, China is contesting the status quo in the South China Sea and its neighbours are rearming in response, populists are storming the citadels across advanced democracies.
普京正试图重画欧洲国家的边界，中东燃起战火，圣战恐怖主义行动在蔓延，多元主义遭到威权主义的挑战，中国正试图改变南中国海(South China Sea)的现状，促使邻国开始重新武装自己，民粹主义者们在各个发达民主国家冲击要塞。
To Mr Trump, the answer is American retreat.
对特朗普而言，答案就是美国撤退。
He wants to build walls.
他想建造高墙。
He questions the US security umbrella in the Pacific — maybe Japan and South Korea should get their own nuclear weapons? He undercuts the credibility of Nato’s defence of Europe — the US might stand by if Russian troops marched into the Baltic states.
他质疑美国在太平洋的安全保护伞——或许日本和韩国应当发展自己的核武器？他削弱了北约(Nato)保卫欧洲的可信度——如果俄罗斯军队长驱直入波罗的海国家，美国或许会袖手旁观。
There is no sense in any of this that American national security is safeguarded by alliances and international order.
美国国家安全靠联盟和国际秩序来保障的理念，对特朗普来说毫无意义。
If the polls are to be believed, Mr Trump has wrested momentum from Mrs Clinton in the presidential race.
如果民调结果可以相信，那么特朗普在总统竞选中已夺走了希拉里的势头。
This does not mean he will win on November 8.
这并不意味着他将在11月8日获胜。
The structure of the electoral college gives him only a narrow path to the White House.
选举人团的构成，只给他留了一条通往白宫的窄路。
And there are three debates ahead.
前面还有几场辩论。
But the unthinkable has become the plausible.
但是，不堪设想的事情已变得看似可信。
We should be more than worried.
我们应当感到异常担忧。
Neither America nor the world can afford a lurch into Trumpian isolationism.
无论是美国还是世界，都承担不起陷入特朗普式孤立主义的后果。
