We're covering Trump's anti-democratic tendencies （Bilingual 雙語）我們正在報道特朗普的反民主傾向

NYTimes

The Morning

October 30, 2024

By David Leonhardt

Good morning. We're covering Trump's anti-democratic tendencies — as well as Gaza, Botswana and New York pizza.

Donald Trump has shown more hostility to American democracy than any other president in the country's history. He tried to overturn an election result. He celebrates political violence. The list goes on, and it is familiar by now.

A central question about a second Trump term is how this hostility might manifest itself. The country's political system survived his first term, after all, and many Americans understandably wonder how much different a second term would be.

It really could be different.

Trump is now far better positioned to accomplish his goals, as my colleagues Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan have explained in a series of stories. His aides are vetting job candidates for loyalty, trying to exclude establishment Republicans who might resist his wishes. Both Congress and the judiciary would likely be friendlier to him than they were eight years ago.

In today's newsletter, I want to help you understand the main ways that Trump could undermine democratic traditions. Along the way, I'll point to Times coverage from the past two years. I will also address some objections that I expect some readers to have.

The dangers

There are at least six major ways Trump could weaken American democracy:

1. Prosecute critics. Trump has promised to use the Justice Department to punish his political opponents if he is president again, including with “long term prison sentences,” as he wrote online.

Presidents have traditionally not inserted themselves into criminal cases. But that has been a choice; a president has the power to issue orders to the Justice Department. In his first term, Trump demanded investigations of at least 10 people, sometimes damaging their lives, as my colleague Michael Schmidt has documented. Trump could order more investigations in a second term, given his staffing plans. (This graphic lays out how Trump could seek to jail his political opponents.)

2. Silence critics in other ways. Trump may also try to use his regulatory powers to shape public discourse. He has suggested that NBC, MSNBC and CBS deserve to lose their broadcast licenses because of their critical coverage of him. He has talked about punishing Amazon because its founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.

These comments echo the silencing campaigns that foreign leaders like Viktor Orban in Hungary and Narendra Modi in India have conducted (as this essay by A.G. Sulzberger, The Times's publisher, explains).

3. Reward allies and campaign donors. Trump, as The Times has reported, “is sometimes making overt promises about what he will do once he's in office, a level of explicitness toward individual industries and a handful of billionaires that has rarely been seen in modern presidential politics.” Both the oil and vaping industries — and perhaps Elon Musk — seem likely to benefit.

4. Replace federal employees with loyalists. Late in his first term, Trump issued an executive order that gave him the power to fire and replace tens of thousands of federal workers, including economists, scientists and national security experts. The order would have vastly increased the number of political appointees, which is now about 4,000. President Biden rescinded the order.

True, there is an argument that such an order promotes democracy by causing the federal work force to reflect the elected president. But the moves may also strip the government of nonpartisan expertise that connects policy with reality. And combined with Trump's many anti-democratic promises, the wholesale firing of federal employees could allow him to use the government for his personal whims.

5. Undermine previously enacted policies. Rather than trying to repeal laws he opposes, Trump and his allies have suggested that he may simply “impound” funds — effectively ignoring laws that Congress previously passed. One example: He could try to block money for clean energy.

6. Refuse to transfer power peacefully. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, still do not acknowledge that Biden beat Trump in 2020. Trump even vows to pardon some of the rioters who attacked Congress when it was meeting to certify the result on Jan. 6, 2021.

This combination suggests that a transfer of power took place in 2021 only because enough Republicans stood up to Trump. And they may not do so in the future.

Policy isn't democracy

I know that Trump supporters may ask why we're not writing a similar newsletter about the Democratic Party. And it's true that liberals have violated democratic norms at times — with aggressive executive orders, for example, or attempts to stifle debate during the Covid pandemic. But Trump's anti-democratic behavior is of a different order of magnitude. Pretending otherwise is false balance.

As an example of how different Biden and Trump are, look at Biden's Justice Department. It has indicted not only prominent Republicans (like Trump) but also prominent Democrats (like Mayor Eric Adams and Senator Robert Menendez), a major Democratic fund-raiser (Sam Bankman-Fried, the now imprisoned crypto executive) and even the president's son (Hunter Biden).

I also know that some Democrats will argue that the list here is too short and should include Trump's potential policies on abortion, immigration, climate change and more. But it's worth distinguishing between policy disputes and democracy itself.

There is nothing inherently anti-democratic about reducing environmental regulations, allowing states to restrict abortion access or deporting people who entered the country illegally. Democrats can make the case that these policies are wrong — and voters can decide who's right. Voters can also change their minds if the policies don't succeed.

Attacks on democracy are different. If democracy breaks down, the political system can lose the ability to self-correct.

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My comment 

The author's so-called American democracy is based on the major premise - the U.S. society is a beyond-class or simply a classless society, hence its democracy is for all the people to enjoy as the society consists of neither a ruling class, nor any of the ruled classes.

Unfortunately, this premise is false. 

The U.S. society falls into the same category of private-ownership societies hence it is a class-based society as genuine as any other one in the world, excluding those of the DPRK and Cuba. 

The US democracy is enjoyed not by its ruled classes but by its ruling class , i.e.,  the capitalist ruling class. Its democracy is not a people's democracy but a capitalist dictatorship under the downright falsehood of democracy.

Any honest person would not claim such a fake democracy to be genuine one,  let alone support it.

It is not surprised that the ruling capitalist class seldomly mention the fake democracy in the open as they worry about embarrassing themselves.

While the upper echelon of the working class - the so-called middle-class may want to muddle along such a fake democracy, the rank-and-file lower echelon of the working class refuses to compromise. They want to ignore the fake-democracy-mongers' sweet words. On the contrary, the majority of the oppressed and ruled class of the country have awakend to such a high level of class consciousness that they support Donald J. Trump's MAGA party to rectify the decaying and crumbling fake democracy by first supporting his attacking and weakening the fake democracy, then persuading his calling for a change of the system to a democratic dictatorship of, by and for the working class majority. 

The MAGA party will serve a potentially indispensable role in embarking on a new democratic revolution, first in this country, then in the world. [Mark Wain 10/31/2024]

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Translation

英譯漢

紐約時報

晨報

2024 年 10 月 30 日

大衛·萊昂哈特

早上好。我們正在報道特朗普的反民主傾向——以及加沙、博茨瓦納和紐約披薩。

唐納德·特朗普對美國民主表現出的敵意比美國歷史上任何其他總統都要多。他試圖推翻選舉結果。他慶祝政治暴力。名單還在繼續，現在已經很熟悉了。

關於特朗普第二任期的一個核心問題是這種敵意將如何表現出來。畢竟，這個國家的政治體系在他的第一個任期中倖存了下來，許多美國人可以理解地想知道第二任期會有多大的不同。

它真的可能會有所不同。

正如我的同事瑪吉·哈伯曼、查理·薩維奇和喬納森·斯旺在一系列故事中所解釋的那樣，特朗普現在更有能力實現他的目標。他的助手正在審查工作候選人的忠誠度，試圖排除可能抵制他意願的建制共和黨人。國會和司法部門對他的態度可能比八年前更加友好。

在今天的新聞通訊中，我想幫助您了解特朗普可能破壞民主傳統的主要方式。在此過程中，我將指出《紐約時報》過去兩年的報道。我還將解決一些讀者可能提出的反對意見。

危險

特朗普至少有六種主要方式可以削弱美國民主：

1. 起訴批評者。特朗普承諾，如果他再次當選總統，將利用司法部懲罰他的政治對手，包括“長期監禁”，正如他在網上寫道的那樣。

傳統上，總統不會插手刑事案件。但這是一個選擇；總統有權向司法部下達命令。在他的第一個任期內，特朗普要求調查至少 10 人，有時甚至損害他們的生命，正如我的同事邁克爾施密特所記錄的那樣。考慮到他的人員配置計劃，特朗普可能會在第二任期下令進行更多調查。 （這張圖表展示了特朗普如何試圖監禁他的政治對手。）

2. 用其他方式讓批評者噤聲。特朗普還可能試圖利用他的監管權力來影響公眾言論。他曾暗示 NBC、MSNBC 和 CBS 應該因為對他的批評性報道而失去廣播執照。他曾談到懲罰亞馬遜，因為亞馬遜創始人傑夫·貝佐斯擁有《華盛頓郵報》。

這些評論呼應了匈牙利的維克托·奧爾班和印度的納倫德拉·莫迪等外國領導人開展的噤聲運動（正如《紐約時報》出版商 A.G. 蘇茲伯格在這篇文章中解釋的那樣）。

3. 獎勵盟友和競選捐助者。正如《紐約時報》報道的那樣，特朗普“有時會公開承諾他上任後會做什麼，這種對個別行業和少數億萬富翁的直言不諱在現代總統政治中很少見。”石油和電子煙行業——也許還有埃隆·馬斯克——似乎都有可能從中受益。

4. 用效忠者取代聯邦雇員。特朗普在其第一任期的後期發布了一項行政命令，賦予他解僱和替換數萬名聯邦工作人員的權力，其中包括經濟學家、科學家和國家安全專家。該命令將大大增加政治任命人員的數量，目前約為 4,000 人。拜登總統撤銷了該命令。

確實，有一種觀點認為，這樣的命令通過使聯邦勞動力反映當選總統的意見來促進民主。但這些舉措也可能使政府失去將政策與現實聯繫起來的無黨派專業知識。再加上特朗普的許多反民主承諾，全面解僱聯邦雇員可能會讓他利用政府來滿足自己的個人心血來潮。

5. 破壞先前制定的政策。特朗普及其盟友表示，他可能只是“扣押”資金，而不是試圖廢除他反對的法律——實際上無視國會先前通過的法律。舉個例子：他可以試圖阻止用於清潔能源的資金。

6. 拒絕和平移交權力。特朗普和他的競選搭檔 JD Vance 仍然不承認拜登在 2020 年擊敗了特朗普。特朗普甚至發誓要赦免一些在 2021 年 1 月 6 日國會開會確認選舉結果時襲擊國會的暴徒。

這種結合表明，2021 年的權力移交只是因為有足夠多的共和黨人站出來反對特朗普。而且他們未來可能不會這樣做。

政策不是民主

我知道特朗普的支持者可能會問，為什麼我們不寫一份關於民主黨的類似通訊。自由主義者確實有時會違反民主規範——例如，發布激進的行政命令，或在新冠疫情期間試圖扼殺辯論。但特朗普的反民主行為是另一個數量級。假裝不是，是一種虛假的平衡。

拜登和特朗普的不同之處就在於此，看看拜登的司法部。它不僅起訴了著名的共和黨人（如特朗普），還起訴了著名的民主黨人（如市長埃里克·亞當斯和參議員羅伯特·梅內德斯）、一位主要的民主黨籌款人（現已入獄的加密貨幣高管薩姆·班克曼-弗里德）甚至總統的兒子（亨特·拜登）。

我也知道一些民主黨人會認為這裡的名單太短了，應該包括特朗普在墮胎、移民、氣候變化等方面的潛在政策。但有必要區分政策爭議和民主本身。

減少環境法規、允許各州限制墮胎或驅逐非法入境者本質上並不反民主。民主黨人可以證明這些政策是錯誤的——選民可以決定誰是對的。如果政策沒有成功，選民也可以改變主意。

對民主的攻擊是不同的。如果民主崩潰，政治體系就會失去自我糾正的能力。

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我的評論

作者所謂的美國民主，建立在這樣一個大前提上：美國社會是一個超階級社會，或者說是一個無階級社會，所以它的民主是全民享有的，因為這個社會既沒有統治階級，也沒有被統治階級。

很遺憾，這個前提是錯誤的。

美國社會屬於私有制社會，所以它是一個階級社會，和世界上除朝鮮和古巴以外的其他社會一樣是真正的階級社會。

美國的民主不是被統治階級享有的，而是統治階級，即資本主義統治階級享有的。美國的民主不是人民民主，而是徹頭徹尾的虛假民主下的資本主義專政。

任何一個誠實的人都不會說這種假民主是真的，更不會支持它。

統治階級很少公開提及偽民主，因為他們擔心自己會丟臉，這並不奇怪。

雖然工人階級的上層——所謂的中產階級可能想勉強維持這種偽民主，但工人階級的下層卻拒絕妥協。他們想忽略偽民主販子的甜言蜜語。相反，這個國家被壓迫和被統治的階級的大多數已經覺醒到如此高的階級意識水平，他們支持唐納德·J·特朗普的“讓美國再次偉大”黨來糾正腐朽和搖搖欲墜的偽民主，首先支持他攻擊和削弱偽民主，然後說服他呼籲將制度轉變為由工人階級多數人統治、為工人階級多數人服務的民主專政。

“讓美國再次偉大”黨將在開始一場新的民主革命中發揮潛在的不可或缺的作用，首先是在這個國家，然後是在全世界。 [馬克·韋恩 2024 年 10 月 31 日]