Leaders

社論

An American first

美國(guó)優(yōu)先

The Trump Show

特朗普秀

What America’s friends should make of the latest drama

美國(guó)盟友應(yīng)該如何看待這部最新的鬧劇

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YOU HAVE to hand it to The Trump Show. Just when you thought it had little left to offer, back it comes with a blockbuster episode. This week it offered a sensational courtroom drama, as Donald Trump became the first former American president to face criminal charges—34 of them in all. Those charges, which stem from three sets of hush money, including one to a former porn star, allegedly involved falsifying business records and the violation of campaign-finance laws. They are familiar, but lurid enough to grip an audience. Mr Trump has denied them all. America is, as ever, bitterly divided in its reactions, but united in being glued to the spectacle. What should the rest of the world make of it? Two contrasting reactions are in order.

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你得把希望交給《特朗普秀》。就在你認(rèn)為它再?zèng)]什么可提供的時(shí)候，它又帶來(lái)了一部轟動(dòng)一時(shí)的劇集。本周，隨著唐納德·特朗普(Donald Trump)成為第一位面臨刑事指控的美國(guó)前總統(tǒng)——總共34項(xiàng)——上演了一場(chǎng)轟動(dòng)的法庭大戲。這些指控來(lái)自三份封口費(fèi)，其中一份是給一位前色情影星的，涉及偽造商業(yè)記錄和違反競(jìng)選財(cái)務(wù)法律。這些新聞見(jiàn)怪不怪，但足夠聳人聽(tīng)聞，能夠抓住觀眾。特朗普否認(rèn)了所有這些指控。美國(guó)一如既往地在事情反應(yīng)上存在嚴(yán)重分歧，但在對(duì)這一奇觀的關(guān)注上團(tuán)結(jié)一致。世界其他地方應(yīng)該如何看待這件事？有兩種截然不同的反應(yīng)。

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One is to be relatively relaxed. All this may be a first for America, but not for other democracies, where taking former leaders to court is pretty common. From France (think of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy) to Italy (Bettino Craxi, Silvio Berlusconi) and Israel (Moshe Katsav, Ehud Olmert and now Binyamin Netanyahu), the list of prosecuted former presidents and prime ministers is long. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is back in office after a 580-day stint in prison. This week a former president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, pleaded not-guilty to war crimes and crimes against humanity at a special tribunal in The Hague. Though Mr Trump calls his legal reckoning “AN ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE”, elsewhere such things have not obviously been a disaster for democracy. Often, it is quite the reverse.

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一種要相對(duì)輕松。所有這些對(duì)美國(guó)來(lái)說(shuō)可能是第一次，但對(duì)其他民主國(guó)家來(lái)說(shuō)不是，在這些國(guó)家，將前領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人送上法庭是很常見(jiàn)的。從法國(guó)(想想雅克·希拉克和尼古拉·薩科齊)到意大利(貝蒂諾·克拉克西、西爾維奧·貝魯斯科尼)和以色列(摩西·卡察夫、埃胡德·奧爾默特和現(xiàn)在的本雅明·內(nèi)塔尼亞胡)，被起訴的前總統(tǒng)和前總理的名單很長(zhǎng)。巴西總統(tǒng)路易斯·伊納西奧·盧拉·達(dá)席爾瓦在獄中度過(guò)580天之后，重新上任。本周，科索沃前總統(tǒng)哈希姆·特哈契在海牙特別法庭上對(duì)戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)罪和反人類(lèi)罪進(jìn)行了無(wú)罪辯護(hù)。盡管特朗普稱(chēng)他的法律清算是“對(duì)我們國(guó)家前所未有的攻擊”，但在其他地方，這種事情顯然不是民主的災(zāi)難。通常，情況恰恰相反。

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True, Mr Trump’s opponents have tried and failed to take him down by means of the political system. The House of Representatives impeached him twice; twice the Senate could not muster the two-thirds vote needed to convict him. America’s constitution deliberately makes the impeachment process hard. Mr Trump survived the made-for-TV hearings of the House’s January 6th committee. Now the effort to punish him through the courts is starting with what appears to be the flimsiest and most convoluted of the various legal cases threatening him. For that reason, the indictment in New York looks like a mistake. But prosecuting a former president at least affirms a core principle of democracy, that no one is above the law.

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沒(méi)錯(cuò)，特朗普的對(duì)手曾試圖通過(guò)政治制度將他拉下馬，但沒(méi)有成功。眾議院兩次彈劾他；參議院兩次未能獲得定罪所需的三分之二票數(shù)。美國(guó)憲法故意讓彈劾程序變得困難。特朗普挺過(guò)了眾議院1月6日委員會(huì)的電視聽(tīng)證會(huì)?，F(xiàn)在，法院開(kāi)始開(kāi)始努力審查各種法律案件中最脆弱和最復(fù)雜的部分。出于這個(gè)原因，在紐約起訴看起來(lái)是一個(gè)錯(cuò)誤。但起訴一位前總統(tǒng)至少肯定了民主的一個(gè)核心原則，即任何人都不能凌駕于法律之上。

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Serious soap

嚴(yán)肅的肥皂劇

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On another level, however, America’s friends should be alarmed. Many have spent the past two years in blessed relief that Mr Trump is no longer in power, desperate to believe that, surely, given his misconduct after the election in 2020 and his many troubles (from legal jeopardy to electoral setbacks and the rise of rivals), he cannot return to the White House. Such insouciance, always naive, now seems reckless, too. The latest attack has strengthened Mr Trump’s status as the Republican front-runner, with a hard but plausible path back to the presidency. That will start to influence countries’ calculations.

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然而，在另一個(gè)層面上，美國(guó)的朋友們應(yīng)該警惕了。過(guò)去兩年，許多人都慶幸特朗普不再掌權(quán)，他們絕望地相信，鑒于他在2020年大選后的不當(dāng)行為和他的許多麻煩(從法律風(fēng)險(xiǎn)到選舉挫折和競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手的崛起)，他肯定無(wú)法重返白宮。這種總是天真的漫不經(jīng)心，現(xiàn)在看來(lái)也是魯莽的。最近針對(duì)特朗普攻擊加強(qiáng)了他作為共和黨領(lǐng)跑者的地位，這是一條艱難但似乎可行的重返總統(tǒng)寶座的道路。這將開(kāi)始影響各國(guó)的預(yù)測(cè)。

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Take Ukraine. Its leaders will conclude that the possibility of Mr Trump’s return to power makes it all the more vital to achieve military gains sooner rather than later. In Moscow Vladimir Putin will draw the opposite conclusion, that he should hold out for a time when Ukraine’s main Western backer might have a commander-in-chief who scorns the country and says Russia will eventually conquer all of it. Or take NATO. Many have feared a second-term Trump would abandon it. Fortunately, Russia’s aggression has strengthened the alliance and expanded it. On the day Mr Trump appeared in court, Finland formally became NATO’s 31st member. All of them now have a greater interest in fortifying the alliance to withstand another Trump shock.

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以烏克蘭為例。它的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人得出結(jié)論，特朗普重新掌權(quán)可能使烏克蘭盡早取得軍事勝利的局面變得更加重要。在莫斯科，弗拉基米爾·普京將得出相反的結(jié)論，他應(yīng)該堅(jiān)持一段時(shí)間，因?yàn)闉蹩颂m的主要西方支持者可能會(huì)有一個(gè)蔑視烏克蘭的總司令，并表示俄羅斯最終將攻下烏克蘭。或者以北約為例。許多人擔(dān)心在第二次當(dāng)選后總統(tǒng)后，特朗普會(huì)放棄它。幸運(yùn)的是，俄羅斯的進(jìn)攻加強(qiáng)了聯(lián)盟，并擴(kuò)大了它。特朗普出庭的當(dāng)天，芬蘭正式成為北約第31個(gè)成員國(guó)。他們所有人現(xiàn)在都更有興趣加強(qiáng)北約，以抵御特朗普的另一次沖擊。

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Of course, a lot could happen to prevent a new White House series of The Trump Show. Now that the Manhattan case has created an American precedent for indicting a former president, it becomes more likely that other, stronger cases will follow—on election interference in Georgia, for example, or on his mishandling of classified documents. Legal imbroglios could yet overwhelm Mr Trump. Even if he wins his party’s nomination, thanks to his strength with the Republican base, the broader electorate may punish him in a rematch with Joe Biden. More twists in the soap opera are guaranteed. But America’s friends should remember the awful truth: it is reality, not a show.

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當(dāng)然，可能會(huì)發(fā)生很多事情來(lái)阻止特朗普秀的新白宮系列。既然曼哈頓案件開(kāi)創(chuàng)了美國(guó)起訴前總統(tǒng)的先例，其他更強(qiáng)有力的案件可能會(huì)接踵而至——例如，對(duì)格魯吉亞選舉的干預(yù)，或者他對(duì)機(jī)密文件的不當(dāng)處理。法律糾紛可能會(huì)讓特朗普不知所措。即使他贏得了黨內(nèi)提名，由于他在共和黨基礎(chǔ)上的優(yōu)勢(shì)，更廣泛的選民可能會(huì)在與喬·拜登的復(fù)賽中懲罰他。這部肥皂劇肯定會(huì)有更多曲折。但是美國(guó)的朋友們應(yīng)該記住這個(gè)可怕的事實(shí):這是現(xiàn)實(shí)，不是表演。