为什么英国人不喜欢特朗普— 内特·怀特

🍀言初🍀

　【 英国一位作者内特·怀特2019年写的这一篇关于特朗普的描述，冷峻辛辣🌶️、机智幽默又切中命脉，是英国冷幽默语言风格的典范之作，颇有毛姆之风，特此翻译收藏！】

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‍Nate White A British writer penned the best description of Donald Trump

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“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”

为什么有一些英国人不喜欢特朗普？

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‍A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

‍有几件事跃上在心头。特朗普缺乏英国人传统上推崇的某些品质。例如，他没有品味，没有魅力，没有冷静，没有信誉，没有同情心，没有机智，没有温暖，没有智慧，没有细腻，没有敏感，没有自知之明，没有谦逊，没有荣誉感，也没有优雅—— 有趣的是，他的前任奥巴马先生却拥有这些品质。因此，对我们来说，这种鲜明的对比让特朗普的缺点变得令人尴尬的醒目。

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Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever.

‍此外，我们英国人喜欢幽默。特朗普或许让人发笑，但他从未说过任何机智、风趣或哪怕略带幽默感的话——一次都没有。我不是在夸张，而是真的是字面意思上的“一次都没有”。

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‍And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

‍这一事实尤其让英国人感觉令人不安——因为对我们来说，缺乏幽默感的人几乎是不近人情的。然而，特朗普就是这样。他甚至似乎不明白笑话的含义——他所谓的‘笑话’不过是粗俗的言论、文盲般的侮辱，或是随意的残忍行为。

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Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

‍特朗普是个网络喷子。和所有喷子一样，他从不风趣，也从来没大笑过；只会自鸣得意和奚落嘲笑。而更可怕的是，他不仅仅表达粗俗、愚蠢、无礼，事实上他就是这样思考问题的。他的思维方式就像一个简单的机器人算法，只会输出琐碎的偏见和本能的恶意。

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‍There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath.

‍他的言辞中从没有讽刺、复杂性、深度或微妙之处，一切都是肤浅的。有些美国人或许会把这种直白视为一种清新的坦率。但我们不这么看。我们认为这意味着内在世界的苍白，没有灵魂。在英国，我们传统上是站在大卫一边，而不是歌利亚（Goliath）。

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‍【注：根据圣经记载，哥利亚是一个全副武装的巨人，没有人敢面对，直到小小的大卫自告奋勇，他带着投石器和5块小石头就上了战场。他面对巨人毫无畏惧 ，把石头投砸在哥利亚的额头上，将其打死。大卫成为勇气、自信、信心和勇敢的象征。】

‍All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

我们所有的英雄都是勇敢的弱者：罗宾汉、迪克·惠廷顿、奥利弗·特威斯特。而特朗普既不勇敢，也不是弱者——他正好相反。他甚至算不上是被宠坏的富家子弟，或者是贪婪的肥猫。他更像是一只肥胖的白色鼻涕虫，一个特权阶层的贾巴·赫特（Jabba the Hutt）。

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‍【注：赫特人贾巴（Jabba the Hutt），是《星球大战》系列中的一个虚构人物。他是赫特族的一个体型巨大、像蛞蝓一样的犯罪头目。贾巴首次出现在 1983 年的电影《绝地归来》中，他是由几个木偶师操作的重达一吨的木偶来扮演的。】

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‍And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

‍更糟糕的是，他在英国人眼中犯下了最不可饶恕的罪行——他是个欺凌弱小的人。然而，在强权者面前，他却立刻变成卑躬屈膝的跟班。

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‍There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

‍这些事情都是有不可言喻的规矩的——即最基本的体面行为准则，而他统统打破。他只会对比自己弱小的人下手‍——而这是一位真正的绅士永远不会做的事——他的

‍‍每一击出拳都在裤腰以下，尤其喜欢攻击那些弱势群体或无权发声的人——并且总是在他们最无助的时候落井下石。

‍So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

‍因此，英国人对美国社会这部分关键少数人感到十分困惑和不安——大约三分之一的美国人居然看着特朗普的所作所为、听着他的话，然后觉得：‘对，他就是我喜欢的人。’ 这一点让英国人难以理解，甚至痛心不已。

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‍Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

‍You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

‍美国人理应比我们更友善，大多数时候，他们的确如此。

‍你甚至不需要特别敏锐的眼力，就能看出这个人的诸多缺陷。

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This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit.

‍这一点尤其让英国人以及许多其他国家的人感到困惑和沮丧，因为特朗普的缺点实在是该死地难以忽略。总之，你无法在阅读他的一条推文或者只是听他讲几句话时，而不感到仿佛正在凝视无底深渊。他把“毫无艺术感”变成了一种艺术；他是卑劣小气的毕加索，满口喷粪的莎士比亚。

‍‍His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

他的错误是粗糙零碎的分形结构：他的缺陷都有缺陷，如此循环往复，永无尽头。上帝知道，这个世界上一直都有愚蠢的人，也有一堆下流的人。但很少有人的愚蠢地如此下流，或下流地如此愚蠢。他让尼克松看起来都像个值得信赖的人，让小布什显得挺聪明。

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‍In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’ If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

‍事实上，如果弗兰肯斯坦博士（Dr. Frankenstein）决定造一个完全由人类缺点组成的怪物，那他做出来的东西肯定是特朗普。而痛悔不已的弗兰肯斯坦博士，恐怕会抓着自己的一大把头发，痛苦地尖叫：‘我的天啊……我到底……创造了什么？ 如果“成为混蛋”是一档电视节目，那特朗普一定就是全集盒装。

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