Has Donald Trump finally gone too far? So many people have asserted this so often in the past, with so little ensuing decline in his popularity, that the claim would seem to lack any hope of plausibility.
唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)是不是终于做得太过火了？过去那么多人经常主张这一点，却几乎不会导致他的人气出现些许下滑，以至于这种主张似乎没有希望取信于人。
Yet there is reason to believe that Mr Trump really has gone too far and that this time even he realises it.
不过，现在有理由相信特朗普确实太出格了，并且这一次他也认识到了。
Future historians may trace his demise to the 12-minute tirade he delivered at a campaign rally in San Diego. That happens to be where a class-action lawsuit by unhappy graduates of the now-defunct Trump University is being heard. Mr Trump accused Gonzalo Curiel, the judge presiding over the litigation, of being “a hater of Donald Trump”, noting that the judge “happens to be, we believe, Mexican”. Mr Trump went on to describe the case as a “scam”, the federal court as a “rigged system”, and Judge Curiel as “totally biased” and a “total disgrace”. Challenged to explain himself later, Mr Trump responded, “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest.”
未来的历史学家在研究特朗普的失败时或许会追溯到他在圣地亚哥竞选集会上发表的为时12分钟的长篇大论。现已关张的特朗普大学(Trump University)不满的毕业生发起的集体诉讼恰好在该地审理。特朗普指责审理此案的法官贡萨洛•库列尔(Gonzalo Curiel)是“唐纳德•特朗普的仇恨者”，并指出这名法官“恰好是墨西哥裔”。特朗普进一步形容该案是一场“骗局”，联邦法庭是“人为操纵的系统”，库列尔法官“充满偏见”、完全是“耻辱”。后来特朗普被要求进行解释，他回应称，“我想要建造一面墙。这是固有的利益冲突。”
The response inside the Republican party has resembled what happens when you turn the lights on in a kitchen infested with cockroaches. Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House of Representatives, who finally endorsed Mr Trump just after his San Diego diatribe, called the remarks “the textbook definition of a racist comment”. Mark Kirk, the Republican senator from Illinois, withdrew his previous endorsement. Even Newt Gingrich, one of Mr Trump’s most enthusiastic sycophants, called the remarks “inexcusable”.
共和党内部的回应就像是，当你打开厨房灯时发现到处都是蟑螂。就在特朗普在圣地亚哥出言不逊后终于支持他的众议院议长保罗•瑞安(Paul Ryan)称，这些评论就是“教科书中定义的种族主义言论”。伊利诺伊州共和党参议员马克•柯克(Mark Kirk)收回了此前对特朗普的支持。甚至作为特朗普最热情的奉承者之一的纽特•金里奇(Newt Gingrich)也称该言论“不可原谅”。
All of which raises the question: why are they finally noticing his blatant prejudice now? Mr Trump has made more obviously racist comments about Mexicans, describing them as rapists and drug dealers. He has mocked the disabled and called his female critics dogs and fat pigs. He has claimed that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and faked his birth certificate. Far from being his worst, his comments about Judge Curiel were merely typical.
这一切引发了一个问题：他们为何现在才注意到特朗普“公然的偏见”？特朗普针对墨西哥裔发表过很多明显具有种族主义色彩的评论，形容他们是强奸犯和毒贩。他嘲讽过残疾人，把批评他的女性称为狗和肥猪。他声称，巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)在肯尼亚出生并伪造了自己的出生证明。他对库列尔法官的评论仅仅是典型而已，远未达到登峰造极的水平。
But in another way Mr Trump did break new ground in challenging core American values and showing contempt for his fervent supporters. The most important ideal Mr Trump traduced in his diatribe was assimilation. Anger about illegal immigration is one thing. Denying that people born and raised in the US are fully fledged Americans is something else entirely. Mr Curiel’s father worked in the steel mills of northern Indiana to put two sons through law school. A third son went to Vietnam, where Mr Trump avoided service. As a federal prosecutor, Mr Curiel had to live under armed protection, after he was threatened with assassination by a Tijuana drug cartel. His is the kind of story of patriotism and struggle with which Americans of every ethnicity identify.
但是，在另一方面，特朗普在挑战美国核心价值观和蔑视其狂热支持者方面确实开辟了新天地。在特朗普的谩骂中，他中伤的最重要的理想是同化。对非法移民的愤怒是一回事。否认在美国出生和长大的人是十足的美国人，完全是另外一回事。库列尔法官的父亲过去在印第安纳州北部的炼钢厂工作，把两个儿子送入了法学院。他第三个儿子去了越南，正是特朗普逃避服兵役的地方。作为一名联邦检察官，在遭到提华纳(Tijuana)一个贩毒集团的暗杀威胁后，库列尔不得不生活在武装保护之下。他的经历可以谱写一则美国所有族裔都认同的关于爱国与奋斗的故事。
A second national premise Mr Trump violated is respect for the rule of law. Politicians stray into treacherous territory when they insult the courts. To attribute legal outcomes one dislikes to political bias — or, as Mr Trump asserted, personal animus and corruption — corrodes trust in the judicial system. For him to make this kind of charge in a case that threatens him financially demonstrates the way in which he thinks American justice is for sale.
特朗普违背的第二个国家原则是尊重法治。当政客侮辱法庭，他们便陷入了危险的境地。把个人不喜欢的法律结果归因于政治偏见——或者，如特朗普所坚称的，个人恩怨和腐败问题——侵蚀了公众对司法体系的信任。特朗普在这样一起从经济上对他构成威胁的案件中作出此类指控，表明他认为美国司法是可以买卖的。
Of course, this assumption reflects Mr Trump’s past success intimidating his enemies with lawsuits and using his wealth to cultivate friends in high places. Florida’s attorney-general considered joining a separate, multi-state fraud suit against Trump University in 2013. She reportedly decided not to do so shortly after he sent a $25,000 contribution to her re-election campaign.
当然，这种假设反映出特朗普过去成功地以诉讼威胁对手、利用财富结交身居高位的朋友的行为。2013年，佛罗里达州总检察长曾考虑介入一起针对特朗普大学的独立、跨州的欺诈诉讼。据报道，在特朗普向她的连任竞选捐出2.5万美元后不久，她便改变了主意。
The third and final line Mr Trump has crossed is around financial predation. He has cast himself as a tribune for the economically vulnerable. But Trump University was a flimflam designed to separate the credulous from their borrowed cash. The gullible enrollees were in the mould of Mr Trump’s supporters: displaced, desperate for assistance and too trusting of a flamboyant huckster they had seen on television. For prices as high as $35,000 for the “Gold Elite” programme, aspirants were told they could become wealthy real estate investors like Mr Trump. A businessman who launches a venture of this type clearly does not hold his customers in high regard.
特朗普越过的第三条、也是最后一条红线是围绕金融掠夺的。他把自己描述为经济状况欠佳者的保护者。但是特朗普大学就是一个旨在让那些轻信者失去借来的钱的骗局。那些易受骗的入学者与特朗普的支持者极其相似：无家可归、迫切渴望帮助、太信任他们在电视里看到的那些花言巧语的宣传者。对于“黄金精英”(Gold Elite)项目高达3.5万美元的价格来说，这些有抱负的人被告知他们可以成为像特朗普一样富有的房地产投资者。创立此类项目的商人对其客户明显没那么重视。
This week Mr Trump issued a rambling statement claiming that his comments had been “misconstrued” and read an unusually subdued speech from a teleprompter after the primaries in New Jersey and California. But the suspicion grows that he is doing something other than running to win. Mr Trump’s campaign operation remains an understaffed, underfunded, feuding mess. By appearing in San Diego, he was wasting time in a state where Latinos outnumber whites, and which he cannot possibly win. In the same spirit of futility, he has laid the groundwork to contest New York, which has not gone to a Republican since Ronald Reagan.
日前，特朗普发表了一则漫无边际的声明称他的言论被“误解”了，并在新泽西和加州党内初选后看着提词器念了一篇异常温和的演讲稿。但是，人们愈发猜测，他不会胜选。特朗普的竞选运作仍然人手不足、资金不足、争执不休、一片混乱。现身圣地亚哥的他，是在这个拉丁裔人口超过白人的州（也是他不可能拿下的州）浪费时间。同样徒劳无功的是，他还为竞逐纽约州做了准备工作。自从罗纳德•里根(Ronald Reagan)以后，共和党从未拿下过纽约州。
Nothing he is doing makes any sense for his party. The buyer’s remorse that afflicts enrollees in Trump University is now infecting his more prominent Republican apologists. They know they were gulled and want their money back.
他的所作所为对共和党来说没有任何意义。折磨那些特朗普大学入学者的“买家懊悔”(buyer’s remorse)，如今正在那些为特朗普辩护、更加显赫的共和党人中间蔓延。他们知道自己受骗了，想把钱要回来。