Goodbye to Barack Obama’s world
和“奥巴马的世界”说再见
广州翻译公司：卢斯：奥巴马相信，任何问题都能通过理性思考来缓解；特朗普则恰恰相反。在特朗普时代，奥巴马的“遗产”将被迅速清除。
It was tempting to believe history had turned a page. Alas, posterity may see Barack Obama’s 2008 election as a detour from the path an angry America took after 9/11. Mr Obama called for an open dialogue with the Muslim world. Donald Trump and his team have all but declared war on Islam. Mr Obama believed there was no problem that could not be salved by reason. Mr Trump has opposite instincts. Whatever precise form Mr Trump’s administration takes, we know this: Mr Obama’s legacy will be purged. In many cases all it will take is the stroke of Mr Trump’s pen.
人们忍不住认为，历史已翻开新的一页。唉，后人可能认为，巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama) 2008年选举上台是对愤怒的美国在9/11恐怖袭击后所走道路的临时改道。奥巴马呼吁与穆斯林世界开放对话。唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)和他的团队几乎对伊斯兰宣战。奥巴马相信，没有什么问题不能通过理性思考来缓解，而特朗普的直觉恰恰相反。无论特朗普政府最终是什么样子，我们知道一点：奥巴马的遗留影响将被清除。在许多情况下，这只需特朗普大笔一挥就能搞定。广州翻译公司。
The Obama erasure will go far deeper than undoing domestic laws, or foreign deals. Mr Trump will repeal Obamacare, or alter it beyond recognition. He will “keep an open mind” about whether to pull the US out of the Paris agreement on climate change and quite probably blow up the US-Iran nuclear deal. These acts would undo Mr Obama’s most visible achievements. Less obvious ones, such as the ban on Arctic drilling and enhanced interrogation techniques and the intention of closing Guantánamo Bay (never completed) will also be consigned to the dustbin. It will be as if Mr Obama was never here.
对奥巴马政治遗产的清除，将远不止废除国内法律或者外国协议。特朗普将会废止“奥巴马医改”(Obamacare)，或者将它改得面目全非。他将对是否让美国退出巴黎气候变化协定“持开放态度”，还可能撕毁美国-伊朗核协议。这些举措将破坏奥巴马最耀眼的成就。而不那么显眼的成就，比如禁止在北极钻探，禁止采用“高强度审讯手段”，以及提议关闭关塔那摩湾(Guantánamo Bay)拘押中心（从未完成），也将被丢进垃圾桶。最终，奥巴马会显得就像从未当过总统。
The bizarre thing is that the same America which elected Mr Trump is already missing Mr Obama. This often happens to outgoing presidents. But in Mr Obama’s case it is unusually sharp. At 55 per cent his job approval is equivalent to Ronald Reagan’s at the same point, and ahead of Bill Clinton’s. It is more than 20 points higher than George W Bush’s. The more Mr Trump tweets from the gut, the more Americans appreciate Mr Obama’s calm weighing of pros and cons. “No drama Obama” is even making the case that Mr Trump be given a chance to succeed. “I think nothing is the end of the world until it is the end of the world,” he told the New Yorker.
吊诡之处在于，将特朗普选上台的美国人已经在怀念奥巴马。这种情况往往发生在即将卸任的总统身上。但奥巴马的人气高得异常。认同奥巴马工作的民众比例达到55%，与相同任期阶段的罗纳德•里根(Ronald Reagan)持平，高于比尔•克林顿(Bill Clinton)。它比乔治•W•布什(George W. Bush)高出20个百分点。特朗普越是在Twitter上发表意气用事的言论，美国人就越欣赏奥巴马冷静权衡利弊的风格。“淡定奥巴马”甚至提出，应该给予特朗普成功的机会。他向《纽约客》(New Yorker)表示：“我认为，在世界末日之前，世界就没有亡。” 广州翻译公司。
Yet it is the end of the world as Mr Obama knew it. He must take some responsibility for its demise. He took office at a moment when the US-led global order was in the balance. Mr Bush’s ill-planned wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had shredded America’s standing in the Middle East and beyond. The financial crisis of 2008 had brought the US-created “Washington consensus” of free market orthodoxy into possibly terminal disrepute. America’s power was in decline but it was not too late to do something about it.
然而，奥巴马所知道的世界已经走到尽头。他必须对其消亡承担一些责任。在他就任美国总统的时候，由美国主导的全球秩序岌岌可危。布什在伊拉克和阿富汗发起的计划不周的战争，破坏了美国在中东以及其他地区的地位。2008年的金融危机让“华盛顿共识”这一美国创建的自由市场正统理念可能永久性地丧失权威。那时，美国实力在下降，但采取对策还不算晚。
Mr Obama took office at a geopolitical inflection point. As he prepares to leave, few any longer dispute the fact of relative US decline. For all his high aspirations, Mr Obama was unable to stop the process. Can Mr Trump reverse it? One of Mr Obama’s core traits is to believe that reason governs how people act. It is the perennial failing of liberal technocrats to suppose human affairs are settled by rational argument. When people failed to see the merits of the case — whether Republican legislators, or foreign leaders — Mr Obama would retreat into injured silence. The world has been a disappointment to Mr Obama. When Vladimir Putin’s Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, John Kerry, the outgoing secretary of state, said: “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in a 19th-century fashion by invading another country on [a] completely trumped up pretext.” But that is how the world often operates. The US had done just that to Iraq in the 21st century.
奥巴马在一个地缘政治拐点上台。在他准备离任之际，没有多少人否认美国相对衰落的事实。尽管当初踌躇满志，但奥巴马未能阻止这种进程。特朗普能扭转吗？从个性上说，奥巴马的核心特质之一是相信理性会引导人们合理行为。自由派技术官僚的长期失败之处就是以为人的事情是可以通过理性论证来解决的。当人们（无论是共和党议员还是外国领导人）未能看到理性辩论的益处时，奥巴马就会黯然神伤。对奥巴马来说，世界令人失望。当弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)领导的俄罗斯在2014年吞并克里米亚的时候，如今即将离任的美国国务卿约翰•克里(John Kerry)表示：“你不能在21世纪以19世纪的方式行事，用完全捏造的借口入侵另一个国家。”但这个世界往往就是这么运转的，美国在21世纪对伊拉克就这么干过。广州翻译公司。
America tends to choose presidents whose personalities are the opposite of their predecessors. Mr Obama, the reasoner, replaced Bush the decider. Mr Trump is a pure bluffer. Much like one of his property deals, Mr Trump will cajole, bully, flatter, and bribe whomever he is dealing with. When he fails — which he surely must — he will declare it a success and divert people’s attention. That is what his outrageous tweets are about. When people tell the truth about him, he will call them liars. When they praise him, he will call them geniuses. When a crisis strikes, he will gamble from the gut. Buyers’ remorse will grip the US public. Mr Obama’s post-presidential approval ratings are likely to stay up.
美国往往选择个性与其前任相反的人当总统。理性的奥巴马取代了依靠直觉决策的布什。特朗普则是纯粹的忽悠者。特朗普将会哄骗、欺凌、奉承和贿赂与他打交道的任何人，在很大程度上就像他做的某一笔房地产交易那样。当他失败的时候——他当然会失败——他会把它佯称为成功，然后转移人们的注意力。他在Twitter上就是这么肆无忌惮的。当人们揭露他的真面目的时候，他会说他们是骗子。当人们赞扬他的时候，他会说他们是天才。当危机来临时，他会凭直觉豪赌。美国公众将会产生那种买了后悔的情绪。奥巴马卸任后的支持率很可能保持高位。
But Mr Trump will not reverse America’s relative decline. The chances are he will drastically accelerate it. The global role that Mr Obama inherited — and tried, to some degree, to uphold — is now in tatters. It would be hard to overstate the epochal significance of Mr Trump’s election. The US-led international order as we knew it for 70 years is over. The era of great power politics is back. An ebullient Russia, led by the strongman Putin, and an increasingly confident China, led by the strongman Xi Jinping, will deal with a wounded America led by strongman Trump. The long-term trajectory is towards China. But the short-term drama will focus on Mr Trump’s dealings with Mr Putin. How they play out is anybody’s guess. But it will not be pretty. Europe will be the loser. So too will American prestige.
但是特朗普不会扭转美国的相对衰落。很有可能的情况是，他将会极大地加速这一进程。奥巴马继承并在某种程度上试图捍卫的美国在全球的角色现在已经支离破碎。很难夸大特朗普当选美国总统的跨时代重大性。我们所知道的由美国主导的国际秩序在持续70年后已经解体。大国政治时代开始回归。由强人普京领导的得意洋洋的俄罗斯以及由强人习近平领导的日益自信的中国，将会对阵强人特朗普领导的受伤的美国。长期轨迹有利于中国。但短期看点将是特朗普如何与普京打交道。谁也不知道这一幕的剧情将如何发展，但肯定不会好看。欧洲将成为输家，美国将失去威望。
Mr Obama, meanwhile, will settle down to his memoirs. If the past is any guide, they will be beautifully written. Here was a highly intelligent leader, and a fundamentally decent one, who strived to make the case for international co-operation to a world that was not really listening. Mr Obama came bearing hope. He leaves warning against fear. But the world’s attention has wandered. People are highly fearful — and rightly so.
与此同时，奥巴马将静下心来撰写自己的回忆录。从他一贯的语言看，他的回忆录文笔将会非常优美。这里是一个高智商的领导人，一个在根本上正派的领导人，他努力向一个不愿聆听的世界证明国际合作是有用的。奥巴马上任时带来希望，卸任前夕告诫世人不要害怕。但世界的注意力已经移向别处。人们非常担忧——也确实应该担忧。
