Better late than never. It took eight months forRepublicans to wake up to the fact that DonaldTrump could make off with the party’s crown. After Marco Rubio’s clinical attacks on Mr Trumplast week, the airwaves are suddenly awash with anti-Trump attack ads. But they are almostcertainly too late to stop him. That task will fall to Hillary Clinton. It promises to be a spectacleunlike anything we have seen. America should brace for the strangest contest in itspresidential history.
迟做总比不做好。共和党人用了8个月时间才幡然醒悟：唐纳德特朗普(Donald Trump)可能最终赢得共和党总统候选人资格。在上周马可脠比奥(Marco Rubio)有理有据地抨击特朗普后，媒体突然开始充斥攻击特朗普的竞选广告。但几乎可以肯定的是，阻止特朗普为时已晚。这项任务将落在希拉里克林顿(Hillary Clinton)身上。这必将是一场我们从未见过的奇观。美国人应为本国总统制历史上最奇特的一场竞选做好准备。
All things being equal, the outcome should not be in doubt — Mrs Clinton’s victory. Yet thereis nothing remotely equal about America in 2016. All that is solid is melting into air. It was notjust the Republicans who misread the Trump threat. Just three months ago, Nate Silver, theguru of election forecasters, stuck to his earlier prediction that Mr Trump had only a 2 percent chance of taking the Republican nomination. He now puts that at 45 to 50 per cent. Thatstill seems too low.
不出意外的话，结果将毋庸置疑——希拉里获得胜选。然而，在2016年的美国，一切都在变。不只是共和党未能识破特朗普的威胁。就在3个月前，选举预测大师纳特缠尔弗(Nate Silver)还坚持自己早些时候的预测——特朗普赢得共和党总统候选人提名的几率只有2%。如今，他将这一几率提升至45%至50%。这看起来仍然过低。
The bookies, meanwhile, give Mr Trump a one in four chance of becoming the next USpresident. That may also be too low.
与此同时，博彩公司认为特朗普成为下届美国总统的几率为25%。或许同样过低。
How could he pull it off? The demography is stacked against him. As a rule of thumb,Democrats are assured of victory if they take 80 per cent of the non-white vote and 40 percent of the white vote. The first part ought to be easy. Hispanics, African-Americans, Muslimsand others will come out in droves to vote against Mr Trump.
他是怎样做到的呢?人口结构因素对他并不利。根据经验判断，如果民主党能获得非白种人80%的选票以及白人40%的选票，就确定能够获胜。获得第一部分选票应该不难。拉美裔、非洲裔美国人、穆斯林及其他族群将成群结队地投票反对特朗普。
It is the white vote — and particularly white males — that ought to worry Mrs Clinton. Bluecollar whites are America’s angriest people. They feel belittled, trod upon and discarded. Thefuture belongs neither to them nor their children. Mrs Clinton personifies an establishmentthat has taken everything for itself while talking down to those it has left behind. Mr Trump istheir revenge.
应该让希拉里担忧的是白人的选票——尤其是白人男性。蓝领白人是美国最愤怒的群体。他们感觉自己被轻视、被践踏、被抛弃。未来既不属于他们，也不属于他们的后代。希拉里代表着自私自利、不把被抛在后面的人放在眼里的当权派。选择特朗普可以让他们雪耻。
His greatest weakness is that he has no policies. As Mr Rubio exposed in last week’s debate,the New York property developer has little clue what healthcare system he would substitutefor Obamacare, which he promises to abolish. Nor does he have an idea how his tax plan wouldwork.
特朗普最大的弱点在于他拿不出任何政策。正如鲁比奥在上周的辩论中所言，这名纽约房地产大亨根本不知道将用怎样的医保体系来取代他承诺要废除的“奥巴马医改”(Obamacare)。他也不知道自己的税收计划要怎样开展。
Much like estimates of his personal wealth, Mr Trump’s tax cut would be huge — at $10tn it isfar larger than anyone else’s. That is about it. The same applies to his plans to bring peace tothe Middle East. He merely asserts that he would be the best deal maker the region has everseen. The only subject on which Mr Trump speaks with any detail or fluency is his pollnumbers, which he rattles off like a caffeinated auctioneer.
就像对他个人财富的估值一样，特朗普的减税幅度将是巨大的——10万亿美元，远远大于任何其他参选人的方案。除此之外就什么也没说了。他为中东带来和平的计划也是如此。他只是断言自己将成为该地区有史以来最佳的调停者。特朗普唯一能够详细或流畅谈论的主题就是自己的民意支持率——他可以像一位打了鸡血的拍卖师一样滔滔不绝。
文章来源于网络，如有侵权请联系我们，将会在第一时间处理
更多资讯可以关注微信公众号：IELTSIM。
[AD] 点击此处了解【雅思合集】【学习计划定制】【终生VIP服务】
