As the Democrats’ nominee, the senator from Vermont would present America with a terrible choice
作为民主党的提名人，这位来自佛蒙特州的参议员将给美国带来一个糟糕的选择
SOMETIMES PEOPLE wake from a bad dream only to discover that they are still asleep and that the nightmare goes on. This is the prospect facing America if, as seems increasingly likely, the Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders as the person to rouse America from President Donald Trump’s first term. Mr Sanders won the primary in New Hampshire, almost won in Iowa, trounced his rivals in Nevada and is polling well in South Carolina. Come Super Tuesday next week, in which 14 states including California and Texas allot delegates, he could amass a large enough lead to make himself almost impossible to catch.
一场噩梦惊醒之后还是噩梦，这是美国即将面临的未来，如果民主党候选人Bernie Sanders接任总统的话，这种可能性会越来越大。Sanders在新罕布什尔赢得了初选，爱荷华州稍逊一筹，在内华达州以绝对优势挫败了对手，南加州的选票也很乐观。下周的超级星期二，14个州（包括加州和德州）的代表进行角逐，更会给他带来难以赶超的票数。
Moderate Democrats worry that nominating Mr Sanders would cost them the election. This newspaper worries that forcing Americans to decide between him and Mr Trump would result in an appalling choice with no good outcome. It will surprise nobody that we disagree with a self-described democratic socialist over economics, but that is just the start. Because Mr Sanders is so convinced that he is morally right, he has a dangerous tendency to put ends before means. And, in a country where Mr Trump has whipped up politics into a frenzy of loathing, Mr Sanders’s election would feed the hatred.
温和民主党人士担心提名Sanders会让竞选付之一炬，新闻报纸担忧如果强制民众从Trump和Sanders中二选一，是不会有好结果的。我们在经济问题上与自诩民主的社会主义者有分歧并不会让人感到意外，但这仅仅是个开端。因为Sanders如此确信道德正确，以至于为达到目的不择手段。在这个Trump的政策被广为诟病的国家，Sander当选将会让愤恨的气焰更加高涨。
On economics Mr Sanders is misunderstood. He is not a cuddly Scandinavian social democrat who would let companies do their thing and then tax them to build a better world. Instead, he believes American capitalism is rapacious and needs to be radically weakened. He puts Jeremy Corbyn to shame, proposing to take 20% of the equity of companies and hand it over to workers, to introduce a federal jobs-guarantee and to require companies to qualify for a federal charter obliging them to act for all stakeholders in ways that he could define. On trade, Mr Sanders is at least as hostile to open markets as Mr Trump is. He seeks to double government spending, without being able to show how he would pay for it. When unemployment is at a record low and nominal wages in the bottom quarter of the jobs market are growing by 4.6%, his call for a revolution in the economy is an epically poor prescription for what ails America.
在经济方面，Sanders有很大的误解。他不是个讨人喜欢的斯堪的纳维亚社会民主人士，不会对不正当的企业行为睁一只眼闭一只眼，从中获取税收来建设家园。反之，他认为美国资本主义贪婪无度，应该大力削弱。他让Jeremy Corbyn（英国工党政客）蒙羞，主张从公司股份中拿出20%给工人阶层，建立联邦工作保障机制，公司必须履行联邦宪章的义务，即以他所定义的方式采取适用于所有利益相关者的行为。在贸易方面，Sanders对开放市场的敌对态度甚至与Trump不相上下，他的政策会让政府支出翻倍，然而他却没有途径弥补这一支出。当失业率再创新低，就业市场底层的1/4人群名义工资也上涨了4.6%，他此时号召经济领域革命，并不能针对美国经济的病灶。
In putting ends before means, Mr Sanders displays the intolerance of a Righteous Man. He embraces perfectly reasonable causes like reducing poverty, universal health care and decarbonising the economy, and then insists on the most unreasonable extremes in the policies he sets out to achieve them. He would ban private health insurance (not even Britain, devoted to its National Health Service, goes that far). He wants to cut billionaires’ wealth in half over 15 years. A sensible ecologist would tax fracking for the greenhouse gases it produces. To Mr Sanders that smacks of a dirty compromise: he would ban it outright.
将目的放在手段前，Sanders展现了对“义人”的偏执。他支持的都是极为合理的事项，比如减贫、大众医疗和脱碳经济，但他选择的实现途径往往是最不合理的极端政策。他禁止私人医保（即遍是致力于国家医疗服务英国也没有这么武断），要求15年内将亿万富翁的财产减半，环保企业家会因为水力压裂排放的温室气体被税，对于Sanders而言这种举措有点肮脏妥协的意味——因为一旦有可能，他会选择完全禁止。
Sometimes even the ends are sacrificed to Mr Sanders’s need to be righteous. Making university cost-free for students is a self-defeating way to alleviate poverty, because most of the subsidy would go to people who are, or will be, relatively wealthy. Decriminalising border-crossing and breaking up Immigration and Customs Enforcement would abdicate one of the state’s first duties. Banning nuclear energy would stand in the way of his goal to create a zero-carbon economy.
有时甚至目的都要为Sanders的正义让步，在减贫问题上，让大学教育完全免费无疑是适得其反的，因为大部分的补贴最终都会进入相对来说比较富有人群的腰包。将过境定为非刑事犯罪，取消《移民和海关执法》将不再是国家首要任务之一，禁止核能也会阻碍他实现零碳经济的目标。
So keenly does Mr Sanders fight his wicked rivals at home, that he often sympathises with their enemies abroad. He has shown a habit of indulging autocrats in Cuba and Nicaragua, so long as the regime in question claims to be pursuing socialism. He is sceptical about America wielding power overseas, partly from an honourable conviction that military adventures do more harm than good. But it also reflects his contempt for 蔑视 the power-wielders in the Washington establishment.
Sanders在国内斗争中对邪恶的对手绝不手软，但对海外的敌人却满怀同情。他纵容古巴和尼加拉瓜独裁者已成习惯，只要其政权宣称自己是为了追求社会主义，他便会放他一马。Sanders对美国在海外行使权力持怀疑态度，一部分原因是他秉承着海外军事有害无益的信念。但这也反映出他蔑视政府建立权利影响机制的行径。
Last is the effect of a President Sanders on America’s political culture. The country’s political divisions helped make Mr Trump’s candidacy possible. They are now enabling Mr Sanders’s rise. The party’s leftist activists find his revolution thrilling. They have always believed that their man would triumph if only the neoliberal Democratic Party elite would stop keeping him down. His supporters seem to reserve almost as much hatred for his Democratic opponents as they do for Republicans.
最后则是Sanders继任后会对美国政治文化造成的影响，美国的政治分化成全了Trump，也将造就Sanders。左翼激进分子深受其革命的鼓舞，因为他们一致认为要是新自由主义民主精英争点气，掌权者早就取得成功了。Sanders的支持者对民主党对手的仇恨似乎与对共和党的一样多。
This speaks to Mr Sanders’s political style. When faced with someone who disagrees with him, his instinct is to spot an establishment conspiracy, or to declare that his opponent is confused and will be put straight by one of his political sermons. When asked how he would persuade Congress to eliminate private health insurance (something which 60% of Americans oppose), Mr Sanders replies that he would hold rallies in the states of recalcitrant senators until they relented.
说到Sanders的政治风格，只要遇到政见不合的人，他的直觉是阴谋论，或对外宣称只要听过自己的演讲，他的对手就会从迷惑中醒悟过来。然而，当问起他要如何说服国会通过禁止私人医疗保险的决议（遭到60%的美国人反对），Sanders却说他将在议员反对声最大的几个州组织集会，直到他们同意为止。
A presidency in which Mr Sanders travelled around the country holding rallies for a far-left programme that he could not get through Congress would widen America’s divisions. It would frustrate his supporters, because the president’s policies would be stymied by Congress or the courts. On the right, which has long been fed a diet of socialist bogeymen, the spectacle of an actual socialist in the White House would generate even greater fury. Mr Sanders would test the proposition that partisanship cannot get any more bitter.
Sanders的极左计划不受国会欢迎，而在各地举行集会的策略必将加大美国的分裂。他的政策很难被国会或法庭通过，令支持者们失望。而一向视社会主义为鬼怪的右派，要是真让社会主义人士入主白宫的话，后果不堪设想。Sanders的上台会证实美国的党派分歧已经到了破碎的边缘。
The mainstream three-quarters of Democrats have begun to tell themselves that Mr Sanders would not be so bad. Some point out that he would not be able to do many of the things he promises. This excuse-making, with its implication that Mr Sanders should be taken seriously but not literally, sounds worryingly familiar. Mr Trump has shown that control of the regulatory state, plus presidential powers over trade and over foreign policy, give a president plenty of room for manoeuvre. His first term suggests that it is unwise to dismiss what a man seeking power says he wants to do with it.
民主派占3/4的主流开始说服自己Sanders可能没想象中那么糟糕。一些人指出他大部分的承诺很可能实现不了，这种借口熟悉得让人担忧，它暗示着Sanders应该被认真对待，而不仅是口头说说。Trump已经展示出控制国家监督机构，加上总统对贸易和对外政策施加影响力，就能创造出足够的操作空间。他的第一个任期表明，忽视一个追求权力的人所说的他想用权力做什么是不明智的。
Enter Sandersman 进入Sanders
If Mr Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee, America will have to choose in November between a corrupt, divisive, right-wing populist, who scorns the rule of law and the constitution, and a sanctimonious, divisive, left-wing populist, who blames a cabal of billionaires and businesses for everything that is wrong with the world. All this when the country is as peaceful and prosperous as at any time in its history. It is hard to think of a worse choice. Wake up, America!■
如果Sanders提名民主党候选人，美国在11月将面临这样一个选择题：一个蔑视法治和宪法的腐败、分裂的右翼民粹主义国家和一个甚至会谴责亿万富翁和商人不当行为的伪善、分裂、左翼民粹主义国家。所有这一切，都发生在与历史上任何时候一样和平繁荣的时期。美国可能已经没有更坏的选择了，醒醒吧！
THE PANDEMIC
