【英语语言学习】平民主义

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

One of the most important forces in American politics today is populism. In both the Democratic and Republican races, politicians are tapping into widespread frustrations¹ against the elites² and the establishment. NPR's national political correspondent, Mara Liasson, has been watching this trend, and she's here to tell us more. Hey.

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE³: Hi, good morning, Lourdes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So what were you interested in finding out, exactly?

LIASSON: I was interested in finding out what this populism means. We know that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump⁴ are riding this populist wave. But I wanted to see what effects populism might have on both parties in the longer term.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So where did you go to look at that?

LIASSON: I started by calling Mudcat Saunders. He's a hillbilly, and he's proud of it. He lives up a hollow in southwestern Virginia. And as you'll hear soon, he had to drive up to the top of the hill near his house to get any cell reception. But Saunders is also a Democratic political strategist. And this year, he sees a lot of overlap⁵ between the populism of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

MUDCAT SAUNDERS: I call it the great new age of economic populism, where I live. I don't think it's just a lot of Trump people. And they're obviously there, but at the same token, we've got tons of Bernie people here. And it's all the same thing. It's about populism. It's about economic fairness, and we feel like we've been left behind.

LIASSON: Kathy Cramer is a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin. And for the last 11 years, she's been tracking the increasingly populist sentiments of Wisconsin voters by listening to groups of people who meet on their own most every morning.

KATHY CRAMER: They're kind of what we might call regulars in gas stations and diners and McDonald's and maybe places of worship.

LIASSON: Cramer says these groups foreshadowed the angry voters of 2016. They felt ignored or dismissed by politicians, the media, the government, big business. And over the past nine years, what Cramer saw was that this resentment⁶ grew more intense, setting the stage for the explosion of populist politics this year.

CRAMER: What I saw was people feeling a whole lot of economic stress, wanting some explanation for why they were having such a hard time making ends meet and then placing the blame on other people in the population and the government.

LIASSON: We know what the big forces of change are - demographics, globalization, deindustrialization. But those are pretty abstract and can be hard to understand. On the other hand, populism has always told a simpler story with a defined villain⁷. In the past, it might have been the gold standard or minorities. Now it's free trade, immigrants, billionaires or the campaign finance system.

CRAMER: The things that are our biggest stresses these days are these very abstract, social change phenomena⁸, right? And making an argument about that doesn't get you very far. It's not very mobilizing. But yes, if you can give people a crystal-clear target of blame, it's much easier to rally people behind you.

LIASSON: On the Republican side, the new populism isn't actually new. Michael Lind is with the New America Foundation. He told me that Donald Trump didn't just come from nowhere. He's an example of how Republican politicians are catching⁹ up with how their base feels about immigration and entitlement reform. Lind reminded me that back in 2005, George W. Bush's immigration reform plan and his plan to partially¹⁰ privatize Social Security both failed, partly because the Republican base was against them.

MICHAEL LIND: So in a sense, Trump is merely articulating views on middle-class entitlements and on immigration, which the Republican base already has shared and acted on for a decade or more.

LIASSON: In the past, populist movements have forced a realignment or a reshuffling of voters. But Lind says that's already happened. There's not many socially conservative, economically populist white Democrats¹¹ left that could switch to the Republicans. And there's not that many socially liberal, upscale white Republicans left who could switch to the Democrats.

LIND: I think the party coalitions¹³ are pretty well defined. And in the energy, really, the civil wars within the parties is about defining the party platforms more than the party coalitions.

LIASSON: For the Republicans, that civil war might lead to a debate about a new policy agenda. And it could produce a new agenda that's less friendly to big business and the wealthy and more attuned¹⁴ to the concerns of the white working class. I also talked to Henry Olsen about this. He's the author of "The Four Faces Of The Republican Party." And he says that is the lesson of this year's Republican primaries.

HENRY OLSEN: Any ambitious politician has seen that there are millions of voters who can be mobilized using populist rhetoric¹⁵ who had not voted in any Republican presidential primary for the last 20 years. And you probably won't see an identical Trump-like figure in future years. But anti-trade, more nativist, more anti-free markets are there for the taking in the Republican Party. And that will influence campaigns and candidates for years to come.

LIASSON: And Olsen said that could lead the GOP to rethink its across-the-board commitment to limited government. Now, on the Democratic side, Bill Galston, who worked for Bill Clinton in the White House, sees Bernie Sanders leading a similar populist revolt but without the same seismic¹⁶ consequences for his party.

BILL GALSTON: There's a lot of economic discontent among young adults, the working-class and the middle-class. So there's something real there for Democrats. And it's not going away.

LIASSON: One consequence for both parties, Galston says, is that free trade agreements will have to be reframed as national security issues in order to have any chance at all to pass. And whoever is making foreign policy next year will have to deal with a new kind of nationalism. Galston calls it Americans first.

GALSTON: What that means is that whether people who are looking at the world through populist spectacles - their first question is now, what's in it for us? And if there isn't a clear answer to that question, then the default conclusion is that what's going on beyond our borders is more of a burden than a benefit.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So Mara Liasson, it sounds like populism is affecting both parties, but it's much more disruptive for the Republicans.

LIASSON: That's right. Donald Trump's positions are challenging the Republican Party's basic DNA¹⁷, their core ideology¹⁸ about foreign policy and trade and limited government. On the Democratic side, Sanders doesn't represent a break with Democratic orthodoxy. He represents a wing of the party that's always been there. It's just gotten to be a much bigger part of the Democratic coalition¹² this year.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Some would argue that this unsettling moment in American politics was much needed. Where do you think this is headed?

LIASSON: Well, in the past, there have been a populist movements in American politics. And sometimes they lead to great bursts of progressive reform. And sometimes they lead to nativism and isolationism. We just don't know where this one is going to end up.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: NPR's national political correspondent, Mara Liasson Thank you so much.

LIASSON: Thank You. 

1 frustrations   

挫折( frustration的名词复数 )； 失败； 挫败； 失意

参考例句：

• The temptation would grow to take out our frustrations on Saigon. 由于我们遭到挫折而要同西贡算帐的引诱力会增加。
• Aspirations will be raised, but so will frustrations. 人们会产生种种憧憬，但是种种挫折也会随之而来。

2 elites   

精华( elite的名词复数 )； 精锐； 上层集团； （统称）掌权人物

参考例句：

• The elites are by their nature a factor contributing to underdevelopment. 这些上层人物天生是助长欠发达的因素。
• Elites always detest gifted and nimble outsiders. 社会名流对天赋聪明、多才多艺的局外人一向嫌恶。

3 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。

4 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。

5 overlap   

v.重叠，与…交叠；n.重叠

参考例句：

• The overlap between the jacket and the trousers is not good.夹克和裤子重叠的部分不好看。
• Tiles overlap each other.屋瓦相互叠盖。

6 resentment   

n.怨愤，忿恨

参考例句：

• All her feelings of resentment just came pouring out.她一股脑儿倾吐出所有的怨恨。
• She cherished a deep resentment under the rose towards her employer.她暗中对她的雇主怀恨在心。

7 villain   

n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因

参考例句：

• He was cast as the villain in the play.他在戏里扮演反面角色。
• The man who played the villain acted very well.扮演恶棍的那个男演员演得很好。

8 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

9 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

10 partially   

adv.部分地，从某些方面讲

参考例句：

• The door was partially concealed by the drapes.门有一部分被门帘遮住了。
• The police managed to restore calm and the curfew was partially lifted.警方设法恢复了平静，宵禁部分解除。

11 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 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。

13 coalitions   

结合体，同盟( coalition的名词复数 )； （两党或多党）联合政府

参考例句：

• History testifies to the ineptitude of coalitions in waging war. 历史昭示我们，多数国家联合作战，其进行甚为困难。
• All the coalitions in history have disintegrated sooner or later. 历史上任何联盟迟早都垮台了。

14 attuned   

v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 )；调音

参考例句：

• She wasn't yet attuned to her baby's needs. 她还没有熟悉她宝宝的需要。
• Women attuned to sensitive men found Vincent Lord attractive. 偏爱敏感男子的女人，觉得文森特·洛德具有魅力。 来自辞典例句

15 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

16 seismic   

a.地震的，地震强度的

参考例句：

• Earthquakes produce two types of seismic waves.地震产生两种地震波。
• The latest seismic activity was also felt in northern Kenya.肯尼亚北部也感觉到了最近的地震活动。

17 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

18 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。