[2019-09-16]一个美国人自述：你为什么支持特朗普？

I didn’t, at least not at first.
For the entire 2016 election, I despised the man. I did not vote for him, and if you’d told me three years ago that I would be writing this answer, I would have doubted your sanity.
But, I digress. We’ll come to that in due time.

我没有，至少一开始没有。
在整个2016年的选举中，我很鄙视这个人。我没有投他的票，如果三年前你让我回答这个问题，我会怀疑你是否脑子有问题。
但是，我跑题了。我们会在适当的时候谈到这一点的。

My journey to the right wing began the day after Trump became president-elect of the United States. I’ll be one hundred percent honest with you: I was freaking out that night, same as everyone else. Like many Americans, I was still foolish enough to take what the media says—not just about Trump, but about Republicans and conservatives in general—at face value. I hadn’t realized just how biased they were or how truly skewed my perspective was, but I was about to.

我的右翼之旅开始于特朗普成为美国总统的第二天。我要百分之百地对你说实话：那天晚上我和其他人一样都吓坏了。 和许多美国人一样，我仍然愚蠢地相信媒体所说的——不仅是关于特朗普的，而且是关于共和党和保守派的。我没有意识到他们有多么偏见，或者我的观点有多么严重的偏差，但我马上就要意识到了。

The first real seeds of doubt were sown the morning after the election was over. Like many, I woke up that with the stomach-churning certainty that everything I’d thought, been taught and believed in for more than a year was lying at my feet in a thousand pieces. I’m no pundit or pollster, but if I’d been one of the countless reporters or “experts” who’d predicted a Clinton victory with such confidence, I would have felt obligated to do some serious self-reflection after being proven so utterly, utterly wrong. But as soon as I rolled out of bed and started reading the headlines, it seemed as though the media outlets were less interested in learning from their mistakes than they were in being hysterical over the election’s outcome or being bitter toward those who proved them wrong. There were some exceptions here and there, but not many.

在选举结束的第二天早上，在我心中播下了第一粒真正怀疑的种子。 像许多人一样，我醒来时，胃在翻腾，我确信一年多来，我所思所想、所受的教育和所信仰的一切，都支离破碎地躺在我的脚下。 我不是专家，也不是民意测验专家，但如果我是那些充满自信地预测希拉里会获胜的记者们或“专家”，我会觉得自己有义务进行一些严肃的自我反省，因为事实证明，我的预测是完全错误的。 但是当我从床上爬起来开始看头条新闻时，媒体似乎对从错误中吸取教训不感兴趣，他们更感兴趣的是对选举结果歇斯底里，或者对那些证明他们错了的人怀恨在心。 也有一些例外，但不是很多。

And then there was this:
I still remember how disgusted I felt at the riots that wracked major U.S. cities in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory. I was absolutely disgusted. I didn’t have a problem with people protesting, not at all, but it struck me as profoundly hypocritical to engage in this kind of senseless behavior after saying for more than a year that Trump supporters would do the same thing when their candidate lost.

然后是这样的：
我至今还记得，在唐纳德 · 特朗普获胜后，骚乱席卷了美国主要城市，我对此感到非常厌恶。 我感到非常恶心。 我对人们的抗议没有任何意见，一点也没有，但在一年多的时间里，我一直在说，如果他们的候选人输了，特朗普的支持者也会做同样的事情，这让我觉得参与这种毫无意义的行为是极其虚伪的。

When black-clad thugs stormed Berkeley not long afterward, the same was true. The only news network that seemed to cover these ugly incidents with the kind of condemnation they deserved was Fox. I didn’t have much use for Fox at the time—and I often still don’t, and I was deeply disturbed that many major American news outlets seemed dismissive or even supportive of it. The argument I heard repeated over and over to justify this kind of ugliness was even more of a turn-off. I found the conflation of hate speech and free speech politically ignorant, morally repugnant and potentially even dangerous. I read these arguments with as open a mind as I could muster, but I was, to say the least, unconvinced. If anything, I came away more firmly convinced than ever that hate speech is just one of those things we have to put up with in order to live in a free society. Everyone, even the bigots, gets to have their say. And is it not better to have such vile ideas aired in the open, in the public forum, so they can be discredited for all to see? Driving it underground, by contrast, only runs the very real risk of making stronger by making it appear edgy and rebellious.

不久之后，黑衣暴徒袭击了伯克利。 唯一一家报道这些丑陋事件并给予应有谴责的新闻网络似乎是福克斯。当时我对福克斯没有在意，现在也经常如此。令我深感不安的是，许多主要的美国新闻媒体似乎对此不屑一顾，甚至表示支持。 为了证明这种丑陋的行为是正当的争论，我一遍又一遍听着，更加令人反感了。 我发现把仇恨言论和言论自由混为一谈，在政治上是无知的，在道德上是令人厌恶的，甚至可能是危险的。我用尽可能开放的心态阅读这些观点，但至少可以说，这些不能让我信服。如果说有什么区别的话，那就是我比任何时候都更加坚信，仇恨言论是我们为了生活在一个自由社会必须忍受的事情之一。 每个人，甚至是偏执狂，都有发言权。把这些卑鄙无耻的想法公开在公共论坛上，让所有人都能看到，这难道不是更好吗？相比之下，把这些言论屏蔽，只会让它们看起来更加敏感和叛逆，从而带来非常真实的风险。

Then there began the long and still-ongoing litany of media fumbles, embarrassments, public scandals and gross errors. When Donald Trump first called the media “fake news,” I cringed. “There’s no way that’s true!” I thought angrily. “That’s all hyperbole and fear-mongering!”

然后，媒体开始发表特朗普漫长而持续的失策、尴尬、公共丑闻和严重错误的新闻。当特朗普第一次称这些媒体为“假新闻”时，我感到很尴尬。“这完全不可能的！ ” 我愤怒地想。 “这完全是夸大其词和制造恐慌! ”

But then this happened:
16 Fake News Stories Reporters Have Run Since Trump Won
And this:
13 More Major Fake News Stories In Five Months Of Trump’s Presidency

然后接下来发生了：特朗普赢得大选后，16家假新闻报道被曝光。还有：在特朗普总统任期的五个月里，又有13条重大假新闻。

I could understand if the media’s zeal to keep the president—any president—in check led to a handful of mistakes or fumbles. But this? Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, four times, even five or six times, I could give them the benefit of the doubt. But after the twentieth time, or the thirtieth time, it became hard to convince me that the media was really as pure as driven snow. What seemed at first like enthusiasm to do its duty to hold power accountable now seemed more like a political crusade by a hyper-partisan media industry that also bent over backwards to paint Democrats in a positive light. Indeed, the deeper I dove into the information seas, the more my indignation grew. In time, I grew to believe—and still do—that the media is more repulsive than Donald Trump will ever be

我可以理解，可能是媒体对任何一位总统的热情导致了一些错误或失误的报道。但是这样吗？一次就是偶然，两次是巧合。 三次、四次、甚至五六次，我都可以假定这些媒体是无辜的。但是在第二十次，或者第三十次之后，我很难相信媒体真的像雪一样纯洁。起初，人们似乎热衷于履行职责，追究权力责任，但现在看来，这似乎更像是一场超党派媒体行业的政治运动，它们也竭尽全力为民主党人涂上积极的一面。 事实上，我越是深入这片信息海洋，我的愤怒就越强烈。 随着时间的推移，我开始相信，而且现在仍然相信——媒体比唐纳德 · 特朗普更令人厌恶

I was absolutely sickened. Even Trump at his worst had never made me feel so disgusted.
The arrogance of the press, their refusal to learn from their growing number of mistakes and their increasingly naked hatred of Republicans over the span of more than ten years led me to one conclusion: that the press was indeed extremely biased in favor of the Democrats. I didn’t want to draw that conclusion. In fact, I would have been happy not to. But I had to examine the evidence and the evidence showed me that my perception of the media throughout the 2016 election had been factually and conclusively incorrect. And so I began to wonder: if that was true, then what else had I been wrong about? I realized that if I could no longer trust what the media was telling me now, then the next logical step was to re-examine my political opinions and perceptions over the past several years. Almost all of those opinions had been shaped and molded from consuming mainstream media sources, and I had a growing, sinking feeling that my views weren’t as well-rounded as I’d once thought. This would not do if I wanted to be an informed citizen.

我感到非常恶心。 即使是最糟糕的特朗普也从未让我感到如此厌恶。
新闻界的傲慢，他们拒绝从越来越多的错误中吸取教训，以及他们在十多年来，对共和党人越来越赤裸裸的仇恨使我得出一个结论：新闻界确实对民主党人有极大的偏袒。虽然我不想得出那样的结论。但我必须检查证据，而证据表明，2016年大选期间，我对媒体的看法在事实上和结论上都是错误的。于是我开始怀疑：如果这是真的，那么我还错了什么？ 我意识到，如果我不再相信媒体现在告诉我的东西，那么下一个合理的做法就是，重新审视我过去几年的政治观点和看法。几乎所有这些观点都是由主流媒体形成和塑造的，我越来越感到自己的观点，并不像我曾经自认为的那样全面。 如果我想成为一个见多识广的公民，这完全是不可能的。

The first thing I did was to start compiling a new list of sources. I discarded my membership with the New York Times and resolved not to read or watch any other mainstream news outlets if I could help it. I also resolved to do something that I hadn’t done during the election season, something that too many Americans still haven’t done: I would talk to Trump supporters. Instead of shunning them, I deliberately sought them out. It was difficult, at first. Many of those who voted for Trump did so only in secret, because they feared being ostracized by friends and family. But gradually, I was able to coax some of them into opening up about why they voted for our 45th president, and once they began talking, they did not stop. They were so happy that I was willing to listen rather than judge that my little experiment went on for weeks rather than just a few days.

我做的第一件事，就是开始编辑一个新的信息来源清单。我放弃了《纽约时报》的会员资格，决定如果可能的话，不再阅读或观看任何其他主流新闻媒体。我还下决心做一件在选举期间从未做过的事情，一件很多美国人仍未做过的事情——我会和特朗普的支持者们交谈。我不会回避他们，而是故意去寻找他们。 刚开始的时候很困难。 许多投票给特朗普的人是秘密投票，因为他们害怕被朋友和家人排斥。但渐渐地，我能够说服他们中的一些人，开诚布公地谈论他们为什么投票选举我们的第45任总统，一旦他们开始聊起来了，他们就停不下来。 他们非常高兴，以至于我愿意倾听而不是去评头论足，我的小实验进行了几个星期，而不仅仅是几天。

Talking to Trump supporters overturned everything I thought I knew about them. Were some of them racists or bigots? A few were, yes, but the vast majority were not the frothing-at-the-mouth brainwashed zealots I’d been led to believe they were. I met women who voted for him, and not just white women either. Black women voted for him because he promised to clean up the inner cities, where too many communities of African Americans live below the poverty line. I met with Hispanic women, many of them immigrants who’d entered America legally, who voted for him because of his promise to crack down on illegal immigration. To them, it was deeply offensive to see illegal migrants being coddled and given handouts while they waited months or years to gain legal entry to the United States. For many Hispanic men who voted for Trump, the same was true. One by one, every stereotype, every preconceived notion I’d ever had of these people, was systematically destroyed. But more than anything, Not only were they easy to understand, I actually—heavily!—empathized with them.

通过与特朗普的支持者们交谈，推翻了我自认为了解他们。他们中的一些人是否是种族主义者还是偏执狂？ 是的，有一些人是这样，但绝大多数人并不是我所认为的那些口吐白沫、被洗脑的狂热分子。我遇到过给他投票的女性，而且不仅仅是白人女性，黑人女性投票给他，是因为他承诺要清理市中心，那里有太多的非裔美国人生活在贫困线以下。我遇见了西班牙裔女性，其中许多是合法进入美国的移民，她们投票支持他，因为他承诺打击非法移民。对他们来说，看到非法移民在等待数月或数年获得合法进入美国的机会时，被娇惯和施舍是非常令人厌恶的。对于许多投票给特朗普的西班牙裔男子来说，情况也是如此。一个接一个的刻板印象和我对这些人的先入为主的观念，都被彻底摧毁了。 但最重要的是，他们不仅很容易理解，实际上我跟他们——非常 ——非常有同感。

And while I was engaging with Trump supporters, I began drowning myself in data, statistics and as many different alternative media sources as I could get my hands on. I took every Democratic and liberal stance on every hot-button issue you’d care to name and put it under the microscope to see if it held up to scrutiny. Abortion, illegal immigration, taxes, guns, you name it. I started fresh, compiled as much information as I could, and then sifted through it to see if my old opinions remained unchanged.

当我与特朗普的支持者交流时，我开始沉溺于数据、统计和尽可能多的媒体来源。对于每一个敏感热点问题，我都采取了民主党和自由党的立场，并把它们放在显微镜下观察，是否经得起推敲。堕胎，非法移民，税收，枪支，什么都有。我重新开始，尽可能多地收集信息，然后仔细筛选，看看我的旧观点是否有改变。

But did becoming a conservative mean supporting Donald Trump? Here, too, I had to re-examine everything I had once been sure of.
I began by watching recordings of some of Trump’s rallies, beginning with the day he announced his candidacy. I expected to hear him make the now-infamous remark about Mexicans being rapists, but when he did, I realized that he’d been taken completely out of context. He was referring to illegal immigrants, not those who waited and stood in line like everybody else. That irked me, but I wasn’t willing to concede the point just yet. I looked up crime statistics to see if illegal immigrants really do commit more crimes on average than American citizens, and to my surprised, I found out they did. I double-checked the data, but it held up no matter how ferocious my scrutiny became.

但成为一个保守派就意味着支持唐纳德 · 特朗普吗？ 这一点，我也不得不重新审视我曾经确信的一切。
我首先看了他宣布参加竞选的那天开始的一些集会录像。我原以为会听到他说“墨西哥人是强奸犯”这一臭名昭著的话，但是当看他说的时候，我意识到他完全被断章取义了。 他指的是非法移民，而不是那些像其他人一样排队等候的人。这让我很恼火，但是我还不愿意承认这一点。我查阅了犯罪统计数据，看看非法移民是否真的比美国公民犯下了更多的罪，让我感到惊讶的是，我发现他们确实犯了更多的罪。我反复核对了数据，但无论我的审查变得多么严格，数据依然一致。

Okay, fine, I told myself. Yes, illegal immigration is a problem, and a far larger than one than I thought it was. He and his supporters were right and I was wrong.

好吧，我告诉自己。是的，非法移民是一个问题，而且比我想象的要严重得多。他和他的支持者是对的，而我错了。

By the end of 2017, I found myself gradually warming to the president despite my reservations. He hadn’t torn up NATO—in fact, it’s about $100 billion stronger now than it was in 2016. I couldn’t help but cheer his utter contempt for political correctness, and I even had to admire his efforts to keep his campaign promises. Sometimes it didn’t work out, but you couldn’t say he didn’t try. As 2018 dawned, President Trump seemed to start finding his stride, and he began hitting the bulls-eye on many of the issues that mattered to me. Tougher stance against China and Russia and Iran? Check. I was nervous at first about his stance toward North Korea, but his willingness to walk away on two separate occasions has been reassuring. I didn’t and still don’t think anything will come of that, but as Churchill said, it’s better to jaw-jaw than war-war. The economy began to really pick up steam, the military budget was bolstered, immigration rules were being enforced, and for all the media’s cries of executive overreach or authoritarian tendencies, Trump made no effort to silence his critics. And so, the end of 2018, I weighed my options, looked at the results, and concluded that backing Trump might not be such a bad idea after all.

到2017年底，尽管我有所顾忌，但我发现自己逐渐对特朗普总统产生了好感。他并没有撕毁北约——事实上，北约现在比2016年增加了大约1000亿美元。我不禁为他对政治正确不屑一顾的态度而欢呼，我甚至不得不佩服他为兑现竞选承诺所做的努力。有时候虽然不成功，但你不能说他没有尝试过。
随着2018年的到来，特朗普总统似乎开始找到自己的方向，在许多对我来说是重要的问题上，他开始引起公众的关注。对中国、俄罗斯和伊朗采取更强硬的立场？没问题。起初，我对他朝鲜的立场感到紧张，但他在两个不同的场合都愿意后退，这让我感到安心。我过去不认为，现在也不认为对朝鲜的立场会有什么结果，但正如丘吉尔所说，喋喋不休总比战争好。经济开始真正加速发展，军事预算得到了支持，移民规划得到了执行，尽管媒体大声呼吁特朗普行政权力过大或威权主义倾向，但特朗普并没有理会这些批评者。因此2018年末，我权衡了各种选择，看了看结果，得出结论，支持特朗普或许不是一个坏主意。

This doesn’t mean that I’m entirely comfortable with Trump’s foibles and gaffes. I’m not. His boorishness aside, I also dislike the messiness and immorality of his private life. Donald Trump does not share my personal values, nor is he someone that Christians should look to as an example of personal behavior. So why do so many of us back him?

但这并不意味着我对特朗普的缺点和失言感到满意。 没有。 撇开他的粗野不谈，我也不喜欢他私生活的混乱和不道德。 唐纳德 · 特朗普与我的个人价值观不同，基督徒也不应该把他当作个人行为的榜样。 那么为什么我们这么多人支持他呢？

We back him because even though he doesn’t share our morals, he doesn’t try to infringe upon them, or force us to share his own. That’s more than can be said for the Democrats, who have already shown the opposite. For Democrats, their way is the only way, and and it’s not enough for them if you say that they’re right. You must also apologize on bended knee for being so wrong. And every time President Trump says something outlandish or exaggerated or outright untrue, every time he does something that rubs me the wrong way or implements a policy I don’t like, his opponents play a game of “hold my beer and watch this.”

我们支持他，是因为即使他不接受我们的道德观，他也不会试图侵犯我们的道德观，或者强迫我们接受他的道德观。对于民主党人来说，这是不可能的，他们完全相反。对于民主党人来说，他们的方式是唯一的方式，如果你说他们是对的，这还不够。你还必须跪下来承认自己的错误。每次特朗普总统说一些稀奇古怪的、夸大的或者完全不真实的话，每次他做一些惹恼我的事情，或者执行一项我不喜欢的政策，他的对手就会玩“别着急，看我的”的游戏

But in a larger sense, the reasons I eventually decided to back Trump after becoming a conservative are rather straightforward: he’s implementing conservative policies reasonably well and at this stage there isn’t really anyone on the right who could provide a viable alternative.

但从更广泛的意义上来说，我最终决定在成为保守派之后，支持特朗普的原因相当直接：他执行保守派政策相当不错，而且在目前阶段，真的没有任何右翼人士能够提供一个可行的替代方案。