美国国家公共电台 NPR--Friction within the GOP causes some Republicans to question what their philosophy is

Friction¹ within the GOP causes some Republicans to question what their philosophy is

Transcript²

The Republican National Committee on Friday chooses its next chair in a vote that is seeing more attention and contention³ than one might expect. What exactly does it mean to be conservative nowadays?

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

The Republican Party has had a lot of public friction lately. There's now disagreement over the debt ceiling and a contested race for RNC chair. As NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben reports, it's all raising questions over what the party's philosophy is.

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE⁴: A few weeks ago, Americans, or the subset who get excited about these things, were glued to C-SPAN as the House voted 15 times for a speaker. Invoking⁵ the influence of former President Trump⁶, Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert spoke⁷ out against eventual⁸ winner Kevin McCarthy.

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LAUREN BOEBERT: The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, sir, you do not have the votes, and it's time to withdraw.

UNIDENTIFIED REPRESENTATIVES: Oh.

BOEBERT: With that, I yield. Thank you.

KURTZLEBEN: Among her faction's demands were that the House not raise the debt ceiling without deep spending cuts. Soon after, Charlie Sykes, editor-in-chief of the website The Bulwark⁹, wrote a piece entitled "There's Nothing Conservative About Reneging On Our Debt."

CHARLIE SYKES: Basically saying, yes, let's push the country toward debt default - in what world is refusal to pay your credit cards considered a conservative act?

KURTZLEBEN: The latest GOP infighting has thus revived a yearslong conversation about what it even means to be conservative. That conversation arguably got louder when Donald Trump ran for president in 2015. NPR's Scott Simon spoke to right-wing commentator¹⁰ Glenn Beck at the time.

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SCOTT SIMON: He's not a conservative, according to you?

GLENN BECK: I don't think he is. I haven't heard him talk about the Constitution or small government.

KURTZLEBEN: But Beck and the rest of the party soon came around. And a recent study shows that Trump, in fact, changed how people define conservatism. Researchers asked party activists¹¹ to rate how conservative different lawmakers are. Here's Daniel Hopkins, professor of political science at UPenn and one of the study's authors.

DANIEL HOPKINS: Donald Trump had, even for these political activists, largely redefined what it was to be conservative around support for Trump and his style of politics.

KURTZLEBEN: Even those with conservative voting records were seen as more moderate than their colleagues if they were also Trump critics. Georgetown's Hans Noel, a study co-author, adds that Trump took focus away from traditionally conservative principles.

HANS NOEL: The sort of America-first, nativist, ethnocentric, even racist¹² kind of appeals, where he's like, let's get out of NAFTA - some of those are rife¹³ - completely fly in the face of a free-market economy, free-trade Republican coalition¹⁴.

KURTZLEBEN: So is the post-Trump GOP conservative? When political scientists have tried to objectively measure the party's conservatism, they have shown the entire GOP, including the McCarthys and the Boeberts, has grown more extreme in recent years. For her part, Ashley Hayek, executive director of the pro-Trump group America First Works, believes both that Trump's ideology¹⁵ is conservative and that he changed conservatism.

ASHLEY HAYEK: It's really - it was exposing the gap between the consultant¹⁶ and the people, and that permanently¹⁷ altered people's expectations overall. So I think conservativism is really putting power back to the American people.

KURTZLEBEN: Hayek adds that she sees this whole debate as an inside-the-Beltway conversation. That may be true, but it still raises a big question. If the party is Trump-centric rather than traditionally conservative, what happens as Trump's influence wanes¹⁸? Michael Steele, former RNC chair, worries the party has no ideology right now. It didn't adopt a new platform in 2020, and Trump opponents like Liz Cheney are now out of power.

MICHAEL STEELE: We don't even have a platform. How do we define ourselves? We can't even tell you what we believe. You know, everybody talking about, Liz Cheney is a - yeah, Liz is a conservative on a lot of things. But Liz got herself kicked out of the party.

KURTZLEBEN: As 2024 approaches, Sykes thinks that what people think of as conservatism may be more about style than substance.

SYKES: Who can anger the left, who promises to fight and, you know, inflict¹⁹ damage on the left more aggressively.

KURTZLEBEN: From that point of view, what it now means to be conservative might be described as simply opposing liberals.

Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News.

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1 friction   

n.摩擦，摩擦力

参考例句：

• When Joan returned to work,the friction between them increased.琼回来工作后，他们之间的摩擦加剧了。
• Friction acts on moving bodies and brings them to a stop.摩擦力作用于运动着的物体，并使其停止。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 contention   

n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张

参考例句：

• The pay increase is the key point of contention. 加薪是争论的焦点。
• The real bone of contention,as you know,is money.你知道，争论的真正焦点是钱的问题。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 invoking   

v.援引( invoke的现在分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求

参考例句：

• You can customise the behavior of the Asynchronous Server and hence re-brand it by defining your own command set for invoking services. 通过定义自己调用服务的命令集，您可以定制自定义异步服务器的行为，通过为调用服务定义自己的命令集从而对它重新标记。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• You can customize the behavior of the Asynchronous Server and hence re-brand it by defining your own command set for invoking services. 通过定义自己调用服务的命令集，您可以定制自定义异步服务器的行为，通过为调用服务定义自己的命令集从而对它重新标记。 来自辞典例句

6 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

7 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

8 eventual   

adj.最后的，结局的，最终的

参考例句：

• Several schools face eventual closure.几所学校面临最终关闭。
• Both parties expressed optimism about an eventual solution.双方对问题的最终解决都表示乐观。

9 bulwark   

n.堡垒，保障，防御

参考例句：

• That country is a bulwark of freedom.那个国家是自由的堡垒。
• Law and morality are the bulwark of society.法律和道德是社会的防御工具。

10 commentator   

n.注释者，解说者；实况广播评论员

参考例句：

• He is a good commentator because he can get across the game.他能简单地解说这场比赛，是个好的解说者。
• The commentator made a big mistake during the live broadcast.在直播节目中评论员犯了个大错误。

11 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

13 rife   

adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的

参考例句：

• Disease is rife in the area.疾病在这一区很流行。
• Corruption was rife before the election.选举之前腐败盛行。

14 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

15 ideology   

n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识

参考例句：

• The ideology has great influence in the world.这种思想体系在世界上有很大的影响。
• The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.我的理想是在意识思想和灵感鼓动之间找到一个折衷。

16 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。

17 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

18 wanes   

v.衰落( wane的第三人称单数 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡

参考例句：

• The moon waxes till it becomes full, and then wanes. 月亮渐盈，直到正圆，然后消亏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The moon waxes and wanes every month. 月亮每个月都有圆缺。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 inflict   

vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担

参考例句：

• Don't inflict your ideas on me.不要把你的想法强加于我。
• Don't inflict damage on any person.不要伤害任何人。