Mr Biden also tried to lay out the traditional policy case, including, by his flubby standards, with some half-decent answers on policing and climate-change policy. For his part, Mr Trump made a handful of disjointed, mostly defensive, claims for his administration’s achievements: on the subject of insulin pricing, for example, he said “I’m getting it for so cheap it’s like water.” But he did not describe any policy or future plan wholly or in detail.
拜登還試圖闡述一些傳統的政策主張，包括用他含糊不清的標準，半正式地回答了一些有關治安和氣候變化政策的問題。而特朗普主要是為自己政府的所作所為發表了一些零散的辯護聲明。例如，在胰島素定價問題上，特朗普表示：“我買的胰島素便宜的像水一樣。”但他沒有完整或詳細地描述任何一項政策或未來計劃。
Was there a strategy to this beyond his usual refusal to be constrained by rules and need to dominate? Maybe not; those urges explain most of what Mr Trump does. But the strategic implications of his thuggery look no less dire for being, in all likelihood, unplanned. Ahead of an election he appears on course to lose, he is telling his supporters that Democrats are not merely hostile opponents but somehow illegitimate. He also repeated in Cleveland his unfounded claim that the election will “be a fraud like you’ve never seen”. Asked to condemn the violent white supremacists who have already taken to the streets on his behalf, in Oregon and elsewhere, he failed to do so. None of this seemed likely to help his electoral prospects. It is the kind of behaviour that has turned a small majority of Americans against him. And yet over 40% are still with him to the hilt.
特朗普除了一貫拒絕受規則約束，以及對于統治權的需要以外，還有什么策略嗎？也許并沒有。正是這樣的沖動才能解釋特朗普大部分的所作所為。但是，探究特朗普暴行所采用的策略，細思極恐，因為他極有可能是沒有任何計劃的。大選即將到來，特朗普似乎要輸了。他告訴自己的支持者，民主黨不僅是對手，而且在某種程度上是不合法的。在這次克利夫蘭的總統辯論中，他再次重申了毫無根據的聲明，聲稱總統大選將“是一場你從未見過的騙局”。當特朗普被要求譴責那些打著他的旗號，充斥在俄勒岡州等地的街頭的暴力的白人至上主義者時，他卻充耳不聞。因為這些似乎都無助于他的選舉前景。正是這樣的行為使一小部分美國人反對他，但仍有超過40%的人支持他。
In “How Democracies Die”, published early in Mr Trump’s tenure, two Harvard scholars, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, described a slippery slope that starts with a trampling of democratic norms—thereby ending the degree of mutual trust between rivals that democracy requires—and proceeds through damage to institutions, especially those related to elections, to lawlessness and extremism. It is always possible to underestimate the shock absorbers in America’s vigorous, multi-tiered system. Yet at the federal level, it must be admitted, many of the warning lights they described are already flashing.
在特朗普上任初期出版的《論民主的死亡》一書中，兩位哈佛學者史蒂文·萊維斯基和丹尼爾·齊布拉特描述了民主國家的覆滅之路。從對民主規范的踐踏開始——從而失去了民主制所要求的競爭對手之間的互信程度——繼而是對制度的損害，特別是與選舉有關的制度，最終到達漠視法律和極端主義。在美國充滿活力的多級體系中，人們總是有可能低估下坡路中起到緩沖作用的那一步驟。然而，聯邦層面必須承認緩沖機制已經遭到損害，學者們在書中描述的許多警告燈已經在閃爍。
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