布魯尼：第一夫人對特朗普的致命一擊

The Authentic Power of Michelle Obama

By FRANK BRUNI October 17, 2016

Isn』t it delicious that after trafficking in racism, promoting sexism and using a lie about Barack Obama』s birthplace as a pivot into political relevance, Donald Trump could receive his final death blow from a black woman: the president』s wife?

販賣種族主義、推銷性別歧視、利用奧巴馬出生地的謊言來撈取政治資本的唐納德·特朗普(Donald Trump)，有可能從一位黑人婦女——總統夫人——那裡遭受最後的致命一擊，這難道不是妙得很嗎？

And isn』t it interesting that after so many years of keeping a studied distance from the ugliness of the political arena, the first lady is throwing herself with such passion into this grotesque campaign?

多年來與醜惡的政治舞台刻意保持距離的第一夫人，如今卻如此激情地投入這場荒誕不經的競選活動，難道不有趣嗎？

That says everything about the singular threat that Trump poses, and she』s emerging as the fiercest counter to it: Michelle Obama, octopus slayer. She』s effective because she has never gone looking for a fight — we know that about her. She acts when she has something to defend, and as she made clear in a stirring, searing speech late last week, that』s more than her husband』s legacy, which a Trump victory would decimate. It』s her dignity as a woman. It』s the dignity of all women.

對於特朗普展現出來的咄咄逼人的威脅，這已經說明了一切，米歇爾·奧巴馬(Michelle Obama)——章魚殺手，正在成為其最猛烈的抵抗者。她的舉動很有效果，因為她以前從來沒主動針對誰——我們了解她。只有當她需要保護什麼東西的時候，才會有所行動，就像上周晚些時候，她在一個激動人心的熱情演講中所表明的那樣：如果特朗普獲勝，那麼遭受重創的不僅僅有她丈夫的政治遺產，還有她作為一名女性的尊嚴，以及所有女性的尊嚴。

Ben Wiseman

I don』t mean to overstate her impact: Trump was going down before she joined the chorus of condemnation. But her eloquence is sealing the deal. First at the Democratic convention in late July and then in New Hampshire on Thursday, she embodied the nation』s conscience and staked her claim as the most earnest guardian of our most important values.

我不想誇大她的影響：在她加入譴責聲浪之前，特朗普就已經在走下坡路了。但她的口才是最後一擊。首先是在7月下旬的民主黨全國代表大會上，然後是上周四在新漢普州的大會上，她化身為這個國家的良知，作為我們最重要價值觀的最認真守護者，表達了觀點。

Hillary Clinton can』t play that part. She has made too many messy compromises and revealed too much rococo calculation. Those hacked John Podesta emails suggest that she doesn』t blink until a sprawling committee of Clinton whisperers has hashed out the wisdom of it.

希拉里·柯林頓(Hillary Clinton)扮演不了這樣的角色。她做過太多亂七八糟的妥協，展現過太多錯綜複雜的算計。被黑客曝光的約翰·波德斯塔(John Podesta)的電子郵件顯示，在眾多柯林頓告密者爆出真料之前，她眼睛都不會眨一下，這就已經證明了她勝任不了這個角色。

Barack Obama can』t play that part, not at this exact moment, in his precise mood. On the stump in Ohio last week, he essentially asked voters not just to reject Trump but to punish the G.O.P., and his obvious, warranted glee over the party』s travails had a score-settling, told-you-so quality to it.

貝拉克·奧巴馬(Barack Obama)也扮演不了這個角色，在此刻，在目前的心情下，是不行的。上上周在俄亥俄州的競選活動中，他基本上是在要求選民不僅要拒絕特朗普，還要懲罰共和黨，他對於共和黨陷入困境所表現出的顯而易見、合情合理的愉悅，有一種報仇雪恨、早就告訴過你的感覺。

He excoriated Republicans for the 「swamp of crazy that has been fed over and over and over and over again.」 He told them that Trump is the nominee you get when your agenda is 「based on lies, based on hoaxes.」 He wasn』t merely safeguarding America』s future. He was reveling in his revenge.

他痛斥共和黨人「反反覆復地助長瘋狂」。他告訴他們，如果你「以惡作劇和謊言為基礎」安排議程，當然特朗普就會成為提名人。他不只是在維護美國的未來。他也陶醉於自己的復仇之中。

Michelle Obama probably also wants revenge for the worst of what her husband (and she) went through, but you don』t hear that in her words.

米歇爾·奧巴馬可能也想要為丈夫（和自己）經歷的一些極糟糕的事情復仇，但你不會在她的演講中聽到這種感覺。

That』s largely because she has the luxury of not being a politician. She isn』t and won』t be running for anything. She hasn』t been forced to weigh in on a bevy of issues, potentially alienating voters who disagree, or to exhaust her ammunition on a range of fronts. You want high approval ratings? Exit elected office, or never enter it in the first place.

這在相當大的程度上是因為她擁有並非政界人士的優勢。她現在沒有，以後也不會擔任公職。她無需非要就一系列議題發表意見，因此就不會疏遠意見不同的選民，她也無需在多條戰線上耗盡自己的彈藥。你想要獲得很高的支持率嗎？那就退出當選職位，或者一開始就不要擔任這樣的職位。

But in addition to that, she has honed a talent — rare in Washington — for rising above pettiness, and she and her speechwriters have aced a nuanced, soulful alternative to common reproach and garden-variety rancor. I think of the gorgeous passage in her convention speech about moving to Washington and watching her daughters wake up every morning in a white house built by black slaves. That observation admonished America for its sins but also brimmed with appreciation, complimenting and congratulating the country on its progress. It got at something that politics and politicians seldom do: the complicated, inarguable truth.

不過除此之外，她還磨鍊出了克服偏狹的本領，這在華盛頓是非常難得的。她和演講稿撰寫人撇開常見的指責和各種怨恨，選擇了另一種微妙、深情的方式。我想起了她在全國大會上發表演講時，說到自己把家搬到華盛頓，每天早上在黑奴修建的白宮裡看著兩個女兒醒來的精彩段落。這樣的觀察既指出了美國的罪過，但也充滿了感謝，那是對這個國家取得的進步所做出的讚美與祝賀。它說出了政治和政客很少道明的東西：複雜卻不容置疑的事實。

Her speech last week was just as exceptional, because it was less a summons to the barricades than a cry from the heart, and she』d planned to make remarks along these lines even before she heard the recording of Trump』s 2005 conversation with Billy Bush.

她上周的演講同樣不同尋常，因為它更多的是發自內心的吶喊，而不是向障礙發出的命令。早在聽到的那段特朗普2005年和比利·布希(Billy Bush)的聊天錄音之前，她就打算髮表這樣的講話。

Then that recording came out, intensifying her determination. 「It hurts,」 she said, referring to the sort of entitlement that Trump expresses, the kind of language that he uses and his obvious belief that women exist chiefly for his pleasure, which takes precedence over their autonomy. 「It』s like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you』re walking down the street, minding your own business, and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body.」

後來，曝出的錄音堅定了她的決心。「很傷人，」她指的是特朗普表示出的那種理所當然，他使用的那種語言，以及他顯然認為女性的存在主要是為了讓他高興，這高於她們的意志自由。「就像你走在大街上，正在想著自己的事情，有人用下流話大聲評價你身體時的那種噁心、頹喪的感覺。」

She added that women often 「pretend like this doesn』t really bother us, maybe because we think that admitting how much it hurts makes us as women look weak.」

她接著表示，女性常常「假裝這種事情不會真正讓我們煩惱，這可能是因為我們覺得，承認它多麼傷人會讓我們作為女性給人脆弱的感覺」。

「Maybe we』re afraid to be that vulnerable,」 she theorized, but she let her own vulnerability show, in a voice that trembled. It was her bridge to every American that she had any hope of reaching.

「可能我們害怕自己那麼脆弱，」她從理論上進行推測，但透過顫抖的聲音讓自己的脆弱表現了出來。那是她希望能夠打動每一個美國人的橋樑。

There has been incessant chatter during this election cycle about authenticity. There has been as much misunderstanding, especially among Trump』s boosters, about what it really means.

在這個選舉周期中，有關真誠的討論一直不絕於耳。對於它的真正含義存在大量誤解，尤其是在特朗普的支持者中。

Insults aren』t badges of authenticity. They』re evidence of rudeness and frequently cruel. Profanity doesn』t render you authentic. It just proves that you』re a child.

侮辱不是真誠的象徵。它們是粗魯無禮的證據，並且常常頗為刻毒。不敬行為不會讓你顯得真誠。它只會證明你是個小孩子。

You know what struck me as authentic? The way that the first lady and George W. Bush leaned into each other and held hands at a funeral for police officers in Dallas back in July. Or the way that they embraced last month in Washington at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

你知道在我眼裡什麼是真誠嗎？是這位第一夫人和喬治·W·布希(George W. Bush)今年7月在達拉斯的一場警察葬禮上相互靠近手拉手。是他們上個月在華盛頓的國立非裔美國人歷史與文化博物館(National Museum of African American History and Culture)開幕式上的相互擁抱。

To look at those images is to understand Michelle Obama』s power. She isn』t tailoring her behavior to talking points. She isn』t filtering her emotions through any partisan agenda. She has arguably become the 2016 race』s moral authority, which is why Clinton, in the most recent debate, repeated her widely quoted assertion that 「when they go low, we go high.」 That』s hardly accurate about everyone in the Democratic Party, the Clinton campaign or the Obama administration, but it』s a fair enough description of how the first lady comports herself.

觀察這些畫面，是為了理解米歇爾·奧巴馬的力量。她沒有為了話題而刻意行事，也沒有通過任何黨派議程過濾自己的情感。她可以說已經成了2016年大選的道德權威，這正是柯林頓為何在最近的辯論中重複了她那句被廣泛引用的話：「當別人往道德的低處走時，我們要繼續向高處前行。」這句話不一定適用於民主黨、柯林頓的競選團隊或奧巴馬政府里的所有人，但在描述這位第一夫人如何自我寬慰時，它非常貼切。

What a contrast to other political surrogates. What an antidote to all the crazy spinning. Kellyanne Conway, Trump』s campaign manager, is playing some parlor game to see how far she can travel from reality, how creatively she can gin up distractions and how subtle an expression — by turns bemused and beatific — she can wear. My favorite Conway-ism was that certain members of Congress shouldn』t upbraid Trump because they are guilty themselves of forcing French kisses on unwilling women. Translation: Let he who is without tongue cast the first stone.

這與其他政治代理人形成了鮮明的對比，也是對所有瘋狂旋轉的有力抗衡。特朗普的競選經理凱莉安娜·康維(Kellyanne Conway)正在玩一個室內遊戲，為的是看自己能脫離現實多遠、能在多大程度上創造性地製造分散注意力的事情，以及能流露出多麼微妙的表情——或困惑或快樂。我最喜歡的康維主義是，某些國會議員不應指責特朗普，因為他們自己也犯過強行和女性進行舌吻的錯誤。翻譯過來就是：人非聖賢，孰能無過。

Can you believe that she once marketed herself as a strategist who could help Republicans collapse the gender gap? Trump trails Clinton by 15 points among women, according to an analysis of October polls that Nate Silver did last week. At this point in 2012, Mitt Romney trailed President Obama by eight. 「It seems fair to say that, if Trump loses the election, it will be because women voted against him,」 Silver wrote.

你能相信她一度推銷自己作為一名策略師，能幫助共和黨消除性別差距嗎？據奈特·西爾韋(Nate Silver)上周對10月的多項民調進行的一項分析顯示，在女性中特朗普的支持率落後柯林頓15個點。在2012年的此時，米特·羅姆尼(Mitt Romney)比奧巴馬總統落後8個點。「似乎可以說，如果特朗普在選舉中失敗，那就是因為女性投票反對他，」西爾韋寫道。

How perfect. Misogyny will play midwife to history. After being treated by Trump as if they』re disposable, women will dispose of him — at the urging of the first lady, in the service of the first female president. They will let him know that no matter how much money he has or how big a star he is, there are places where his tentacles can』t travel.

多麼完美。對女性的歧視將幫助創造歷史。在被特朗普認為利用完即可丟棄後，女性將在第一夫人的敦促下把他趕出局，為首位女總統服務。她們將讓他知道，不管有多少錢，不管是多大的明星，總有他的觸角伸不到的地方。

Not all the Tic Tacs in the world could sweeten that fate.

全世界的的嗒糖(Tic Tacs)都無法讓這個命運變得甜蜜起來。

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