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Whoever takes the oath of office on Jan. 20 will be tested by a historic set of challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has just entered its worst phase yet, rampaging across the country virtually unchecked. The economic fallout from the virus continues to worsen without new federal aid. Trump has given few hints of what his next months in office may hold, but few expect them to be smooth. An urgent set of policy problems, from climate change to health care to the nation's crumbling infrastructure, may run into the wall of divided government. America's democratic institutions will continue to teeter. "If in fact Biden wins, it's still the case that an openly bigoted aspiring authoritarian not only won the presidency but captured the complete loyalty of one of two major political parties, and—but for a once-in-a-century pandemic—he might have been re-elected," says Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan legal group. "If that doesn't tell you that something is completely rotten in the foundations of our democracy, I don't know what would."
不管是誰(shuí)在明年1月20日宣誓就職，他都將面臨一系列歷史性挑戰(zhàn)。新冠才剛進(jìn)入最糟糕的階段，正任意肆虐著整個(gè)美國(guó)。在沒(méi)有新的聯(lián)邦援助的情況下，新冠對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)的影響將持續(xù)惡化。特朗普并未對(duì)他下個(gè)月的任期給出太多提示，但預(yù)計(jì)不會(huì)太順利。從氣候變化到醫(yī)療保健再到國(guó)家破舊的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施等一系列緊迫的政策問(wèn)題可能會(huì)撞到分裂的政府的墻上，美國(guó)的民主制度將繼續(xù)搖搖欲墜。無(wú)黨派法律組織“保護(hù)民主”的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人伊恩·巴辛說(shuō)：“如果拜登真的贏了，那么意味著一個(gè)公開(kāi)偏執(zhí)的有抱負(fù)的獨(dú)裁主義者不僅贏得了總統(tǒng)職位，還贏得了民主黨的絕對(duì)忠誠(chéng)，并且對(duì)于百年一遇的大瘟疫來(lái)說(shuō)，今后他有可能再次當(dāng)選。沒(méi)有什么能比此更能說(shuō)明我們民主的基礎(chǔ)已經(jīng)徹底腐爛了。”
The story of American politics in the 21st century has been one of escalating polarization and gridlock, a nihilistic feedback loop that has made the country all but impossible to lead. For years, a chaos-ridden nation has waited to deliver its verdict on Trump's unorthodox presidency. But this is 2020—the year when up was down and real was fake, the year of the plague, the year of the unexpected: of course it would not be that easy. Both sides hoped for a knockout blow, a landslide that would forever settle the question of which version of America is the true one. Instead, our identity crisis continues.
21世紀(jì)的美國(guó)政治故事充斥著兩極分化和不斷升級(jí)的僵局，虛無(wú)主義的反饋環(huán)路讓這個(gè)國(guó)家變得很難領(lǐng)導(dǎo)。多年來(lái)，這個(gè)混亂不堪的國(guó)家一直在等待對(duì)特朗普異端的管理做出裁決。但是今年是2020年，這一年混亂不堪、真假難辨，這一年是瘟疫之年、意外叢生之年。這一年當(dāng)然不會(huì)簡(jiǎn)單渡過(guò)。雙方都希望能有一場(chǎng)壓倒性的勝利，從而永遠(yuǎn)解決“哪個(gè)版本的美國(guó)才是真正的美國(guó)”這個(gè)問(wèn)題。但是相反，我們的身份危機(jī)仍在繼續(xù)。
The campaign unfolded over a year so convulsive that the third presidential impeachment in history now seems a distant memory. COVID-19 upended Americans' lives and drained their bank accounts. Millions of people, from all walks of life, took to the streets to protest police violence. The West Coast's sky was blotted by fire for weeks, while the East was battered by a record hurricane season. And yet, against this backdrop of chaos there was an odd political stasis: Trump's standing in polls remained about where it had been when Biden first entered the race—a sign, Democrats believed, that Trump had little chance of persuading an electorate that had long since rejected him.
這場(chǎng)競(jìng)選持續(xù)了一年多，如此驚心動(dòng)魄，以致歷史上第三次總統(tǒng)彈劾似乎已經(jīng)成為遙遠(yuǎn)的過(guò)去。新冠把美國(guó)人民的生活搞得亂七八糟，吸干了他們的銀行賬戶；千百萬(wàn)來(lái)自各行各業(yè)的人們走上街頭抗議警察的暴力；西海岸的天空被大火籠罩了數(shù)周，而東邊則遭受了創(chuàng)記錄的颶風(fēng)季節(jié)的襲擊。然而，在這種混亂的背景下，卻出現(xiàn)了奇怪的政治停滯：特朗普在民調(diào)中的支持率與拜登第一次參選時(shí)持平——民主黨人認(rèn)為這是一個(gè)信號(hào)，表明特朗普幾乎無(wú)法說(shuō)服那些早已拒絕他的選民。
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