加国头条 i4cc.ca ｜华盛顿邮报：我们已经习惯了特朗普极端的喜怒无常

We’re used to Trump’s extreme hot and cold emotions

我们已经习惯了特朗普极端的喜怒无常

素材来源：《华盛顿邮报》翻译：世界播

By Columnist Dana Milbank

《华盛顿邮报》专栏作者：达纳•米尔班克

It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.

这是最好的时代。这是最糟糕的时代。

In our current age of foolishness, things are “incredible,” “thriving,” “booming,” “prospering,” “tremendous,” “beautiful,” “very much happy” — the “greatest,” “best” and “most.”

在我们这个愚蠢的时代，事物常常呈现出“不可思议的”、“欣欣向荣的”、“繁荣昌盛的”、“蓬勃发展的”、“宏伟壮大的”、“光彩动人的”、“幸福美满的”状态，现在这个时代就是“最伟大的”、“最美好的”和“最幸福的”。

It is also a “disaster,” a “mess,” “disintegrating,” “really bad,” “even worse” than the “worst,” “ridiculous,” “nasty” and “fake” — with “abuses,” a “lot of problems” and in a “spiral down.”

但它也是一场“灾难”、一种“混乱”、逐渐“分崩离析”、“相当糟糕”、甚至“糟糕透顶”、简直就是“荒谬”、“肮脏”和“虚假”，而且随之而来的是“（权力的）滥用”、“层出不穷的问题”和“螺旋式的下降”。

All of the above thoughts were proclaimed by President Trump within the span of a few minutes this week. So extreme is his rhetoric that even an attempt to portray himself as calm devolved into hysterical hyperbole.

以上所有想法都是特朗普总统在本周短短几分钟内宣布的。他的言辞如此极端，甚至试图把自己描绘成一个冷静的人，这真是一种极其可笑的夸张描绘。

“I was so calm,” he said. “I was extremely calm. . . . Kellyanne, what was my temperament?”

“我当时很平静”，他说：“我真的非常冷静……凯莉安妮，我那个时候的状态怎么样？”

“Very calm,” aide Kellyanne Conway replied.

他的高级助手凯莉安妮•康韦回答道：“相当冷静。”

“You were very calm,” aide Mercedes Schlapp assured him.

而助手梅塞德丝•施雷普也向他保证：“您当时非常地冷静”。

Aide Larry Kudlow concurred: “You were very calm.”

助手拉里•库德洛表示同意：“您很冷静。”

“So I was very calm,” said Trump.

特朗普说：“看到了吧，我内心异常平静”。

“Very calm,” spokeswoman Sarah Sanders echoed.

女发言人萨拉•桑德斯附和道：“对！非常冷静”。

“Couldn’t have been more calm,” Trump summarized. “We had this instance at least once before where I was very, very calm. . . . So I was extremely calm, very much like I am right now.”

特朗普最后总结道：“没有比这更冷静的时刻了。我们之前至少有过一次这样的情况，当时我非常、非常地平静……所以你知道了，我当时异常冷静，就像我现在一样。”

Totally!!! He was so preternaturally pacific, so stupendously serene, so transcendentally tranquil that there has never, ever been a person, dead or alive, as utterly, astonishingly and overwhelmingly calm as Trump.

确实如此！！！他异常地平静，惊人地安详，超然地宁静，从来没有，从来没有一个人，无论是死是活，会像特朗普那样近乎完全地、出奇地平静。

We have by now become accustomed to such extreme emotion — both hot and cold — from the president. Routine though it is for him, it is not normal. Now we know exactly how abnormal it is.

到目前为止，我们已经习惯了总统的这种极端情绪，不管是极度高昂还是极度低沉。虽然这对他来说已是家常便饭，但实际上这是不正常的。现在我们能确切地知道这有多不正常了。

I asked Factba.se, a data analytics company that analyzes language with artificial intelligence, to do a sentiment analysis of Trump’s speech compared with that of his predecessors. Factba.se’s Bill Frischling had his computers sift through millions of words uttered by presidents back to Herbert Hoover and compute the intensity of each one’s average positive comment and average negative comment.

我通过一家用人工智能分析语言的数据分析公司Factba.se获得了一些数据，该公司对特朗普的演讲和他的前任们的演讲进行了情感分析。Factba.se的比尔•弗里斯克林用他的电脑对从赫伯特•胡佛开始的每一位历任总统发表的数百万个单词进行筛选，以计算出每位总统的平均正面言论和平均负面言论强度。

The presidents were in a tight band. With +1.0 being the most favorable possible statement, their positive statements averaged from +0.22 (Harry Truman) to +0.33 (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama). With -1.0 being the most adverse possible statement, their negative statements averaged from -0.19 (Truman) to -0.27 (Bush).

计算出来的数据显示，这些总统们几乎不相上下。由于+1.0是最有利言论的最高值，他们的正面性言论平均值基本都在+0.22（哈里•杜鲁门）到+0.33（比尔•克林顿、乔治•w•布什、巴拉克•奥巴马）之间。负1.0则是最不利言论的临界值，他们的负面性言论平均值在-0.19(杜鲁门)到-0.27(布什)之间。

And then there was Trump. His average positive statement: +0.64 (+0.66 on Twitter). His average negative statement: -0.53 (-0.61 on Twitter). He is literally twice as extreme as all predecessors over the past century.

然后要单独说说特朗普。他的正面性言论平均值为+0.64 (推特上的为+0.66)。他的负面性言论平均值为-0.53 (推特上为-0.61)。他的极端程度是上个世纪所有历任美国总统的两倍。

And it’s not just presidents. Trump’s rhetoric is also about twice as extreme as the most extreme members of the last Congress (-0.31, +0.36).

不仅仅是相较于历届总统而言。特朗普的言辞比上届国会中最极端的议员还要极端两倍。

But if Trump is without peer in the American political tradition, he unfortunately has equals in another tradition. Such rhetoric is a hallmark of totalitarianism.

但不幸的是，就算特朗普在美国政治传统中没有沆瀣一气的同伴，他在另一个传统中也依旧会有与他是一丘之貉之人。这样的言辞是极权主义的标志。

“It’s using emotion to circumvent reason, to overwhelm reason,” says Jason Stanley, a Yale philosopher specializing in language and author of the book “How Fascism Works.”

耶鲁大学专攻语言的哲学家、《法西斯的运作》一书的作者杰森•史丹利表示：“这是用情感来规避理性，并压倒理性。”

“He wants to get the situation such that it’s a crisis and there’s such fear and suspicion that the only happiness, the delivery, is winning over his enemies,” Stanley tells me. Hence, the lavish praise of and great love for his supporters and the unalloyed vitriol toward foreigners, racial minorities, elites and socialists.

史丹利告诉我：“他想把情况弄成这样：即这是一场危机，他让公众充满恐惧和怀疑，并且通过传播阴谋论，告诉人们，唯一获取幸福的方式，就是战胜他的敌人。”因此，他经常对他的拥护者表达慷慨的赞扬和厚爱，同时，他对外国人、少数族裔、精英阶层和社会主义者表现出不折不扣、近乎纯粹的刻薄。

Trump isn’t necessarily fascist, but his language is. “Goebbels talks about propaganda being best when it appeals to straightforward emotion: fear, suspicion, anger, and then it would be culminated with ‘we’re winning,’ ‘we’re going to get them,’ ” Stanley says. A speech of this method was often very long, “with extremes of paranoia and then praise of ‘us,’ ‘our’ greatness, and a desire for revenge for lost greatness. . . . When our emotions are being overwhelmed, it’s because people are trying to manipulate us and drive us toward a desired goal.”

特朗普不一定是法西斯主义者，但他的语言是。史丹利指出：“戈培尔说，当宣传诉诸于直白的情感时，效果最好：恐惧、怀疑、愤怒，然后以‘我们赢了’、‘我们会得到它们’作为高潮。”不过，用这种方法进行的演讲通常很长，并且常常伴有“极度偏执的情感，这些宣传者在演说中会高度赞扬‘我们’这个群体，然后指出‘我们’是如何的伟大，同时激发群众为失去的伟大进行复仇的欲望……当我们的情绪被完全激起时，那就表明这些人们已经成功操纵了我们，驱使我们朝着一个理想的目标前进。”

Americans, for example, would rationally have empathy upon learning that children have died in U.S. custody on the border. But if we fear that those crossing the border are a mortal threat to us, that fear overwhelms reason.

例如，当美国人得知有儿童在美国边境拘留期间死亡时，他们会理性地表示同情。但如果我们担心那些越境者对我们构成致命威胁，那么这种恐惧就会压倒理智。

That Trump loves to insult is obvious. But he’s actually more extreme in his positive sentiments — his own greatness and his paternalistic love for supporters.

特朗普喜欢发表侮辱性的言论这一点是显而易见的。但实际上，他的积极情绪更为极端，这其中就包括他总爱标榜自己的伟大和他对其支持者家长式的爱。

His supporters, lovingly embraced; they know he often lies, but they believe he’s lying for them — lying to the liars. Us-vs.-them thinking becomes so powerful that the enemy’s humiliation can be more gratifying than one’s own betterment.

他的支持者们深情地拥抱着他；他们知道他经常说谎，但他们相信他是在为他们说谎，同时在对那些说谎者说谎。有关于“我们vs他们”的想法已经逐渐在这些特朗普的拥护者心中根深蒂固，以至于对其敌人进行的羞辱相较于自己的进步而言，更令他们满意。

How to counter this extreme emotion? The evidence that not a single member of Congress comes close to Trump’s rhetorical excess raises hope. The best opponents can do until then is to cling to truth. Emotion can overwhelm reason for only so long.

如何对抗这种极端的情绪？有证据表明，没有任何一位国会议员有特朗普这样的夸夸其谈和过分言辞，这增加了人们的希望。在此之前，反对者所能做的最好的事情就是坚持真理。情感能压倒理智的时间也就那么长而已。