WASHINGTON — Whit Ayres, a Republican political consultant here, likes to tell his clients that there are “three keys to credibility.”
華盛頓——這裏的共和黨政治顧問惠特·艾爾斯(Whit Ayres)喜歡跟自己的客戶談論“可信度三要素”。
“One, never defend the indefensible,” he says. “Two, never deny the undeniable. And No. 3 is: Never lie.”
“第一，絕不為無可辯護的事情辯護，”他說。“第二，絕不對無可否認的事情加以否認。第三條是：絕不撒謊。”
Would that politicians took his advice.
但願政客們采納過他的建議。
Fabrications have long been a part of U.S. politics. Politicians lie to puff themselves up, to burnish their résumés and to cover up misdeeds, including sexual affairs. (See: Bill Clinton.) Sometimes they cite false information for what they believe are justifiable policy reasons. (See: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam.)
不實之辭一向是美國政治的一部分。政客撒謊的目的可能是自我吹捧，可能是美化自己的簡曆，也可能是掩蓋不檢行為，其中包括風流韻事。（參見：比爾·克林頓[Bill Clinton]。）有時候他們會出於其眼中正當的政策原因，援引虛假信息。（參見：林登·約翰遜[Lyndon Johnson]與越戰。）
But President Donald Trump, historians and consultants in both political parties agree, appears to have taken what the writer Hannah Arendt once called “the conflict between truth and politics” to an entirely new level.
但兩黨的曆史學者和顧問一致認為，唐納德·特朗普總統似乎讓作家漢娜·阿倫特(Hannah Arendt)口中的“政治與真理的衝突”上升到了全新的高度。
From his days peddling the false notion that former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, to his inflated claims about how many people attended his inaugural, to his description just last week of receiving two phone calls — one from the president of Mexico and another from the head of the Boy Scouts — that never happened, Trump is trafficking in hyperbole, distortion and fabrication on practically a daily basis.
特朗普傳播過前總統貝拉克·奧巴馬(Barack Obama)出生於肯尼亞的虛假消息，誇大過出席其就職典禮的人數，就在上周還無中生有地描繪過自己接聽的兩通電話——一通來自墨西哥總統，另一通來自童子軍負責人。他幾乎每天都在散布誇張的陳述、扭曲的信息以及虛構的言辭。
In part, this represents yet another way that Trump is operating on his own terms, but it also reflects a broader decline in standards of truth for political discourse. A look at politicians over the past half-century makes it clear that lying in office did not begin with Trump. Still, the scope of Trump’s falsehoods raises questions about whether the brakes on straying from the truth and the consequences for politicians’ being caught saying things that just are not true have diminished over time.
某種程度上，這代表著特朗普在其任期內的另類行事方式，但也折射出政治話語真實標準的大範圍下降。對過去50年間的政治人物做一番研究，你會清楚地發現，在任上撒謊之舉並非始於特朗普。不過，特朗普的謊言所涉範疇之廣引發了這樣的疑慮：長期以來，意在防止偏離真相的約束性措施是不是被削弱了，政客撒謊被逮到的後果是不是不那麽嚴重了。
One of the first modern presidents to wrestle publicly with a lie was Dwight D. Eisenhower in May 1960, when an U.S. U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace.
1960年5月，德懷特·D·艾森豪威爾(Dwight D. Eisenhower)成為最早在公眾麵前努力應對謊言問題的現代總統之一。當時，一架美國U-2偵察機在蘇聯領空被擊落。
The Eisenhower administration lied to the public about the plane and its mission, claiming it was a weather aircraft. But when the Soviets announced that the pilot had been captured alive, Eisenhower reluctantly acknowledged that the plane had been on an intelligence mission — an admission that shook him badly, the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said.
艾森豪威爾政府就這架飛機及其任務對公眾撒了謊，說它是氣象探測機。但當蘇聯宣布飛行員被活捉的消息時，艾森豪威爾很不情願地承認，這架飛機當時正在執行情報搜集任務——承認撒謊讓他極度心煩意亂，曆史學者多麗絲·科恩斯·古德溫(Doris Kearns Goodwin)說。
“He just felt that his credibility was such an important part of his person and character, and to have that undermined by having to tell a lie was one of the deepest regrets of his presidency,” Goodwin said.
“他覺得信用是自身品質的重要組成部分，因為不得不撒謊而讓可信度嚴重受損，是他擔任總統期間最後悔的事情之一，”古德溫說。
In the short run, Eisenhower was hurt; a summit meeting with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev collapsed in acrimony. But the public eventually forgave him, Goodwin said, because he owned up to his mistake.
從短期看，艾森豪威爾為謊言所累；他與蘇聯領導人尼基塔·赫魯曉夫(Nikita Khrushchev)的高峰會晤在嚴厲的指責聲中失敗。但古德溫說，公眾最終原諒了艾森豪威爾，因為他承認了錯誤。
In 1972, at the height of the Watergate scandal, President Richard M. Nixon was accused of lying, obstructing justice and misusing the Internal Revenue Service, among other agencies, and resigned rather than face impeachment. Voters, accustomed to being able to trust politicians, were disgusted. In 1976, Jimmy Carter won the presidency after telling the public, “I’ll never lie to you.”
1972年，水門事件醜聞鬧得轟轟烈烈之際，理查德·M·尼克鬆(Richard M. Nixon)總統被指撒謊、妨礙司法公正、不當調用國稅局(Internal Revenue Service)等機構，他選擇了辭職，而非直麵彈劾。習慣於把政客當成可信任之人的選民對此非常氣憤。1976年，吉米·卡特(Jimmy Carter)在告訴公眾“我絕不會對你們撒謊”之後贏得總統大選。
Over the past two decades, institutional changes in U.S. politics have made it easier for politicians to lie. The proliferation of television political talk shows and the rise of the internet have created a fragmented media environment. With no widely acknowledged media gatekeeper, politicians have an easier time distorting the truth.
過去二十年來，美國政治的製度性變化使政客說謊變得更容易了。電視政治脫口秀的激增和互聯網的興起創造了一個碎片化的媒體環境。沒有了受到廣泛認可的媒體守門員，政客們便可以更輕易地歪曲真相。
And in an era of hyperpartisanship, where politicians often are trying to court voters at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, politicians often lie with impunity. Even the use of the word “lie” in politics has changed.
在一個極端黨派偏見盛行的時代，政客們經常有恃無恐地說謊，力圖討好位於政治觀點兩極的選民。就連“謊言”這個詞在政治中的用法也變了。
“There was a time not long ago when you could not use the word ‘lie’ in a campaign,” said Anita Dunn, once a communications director to Obama. “It was thought to be too harsh, and it would backfire. So you had to say they hadn’t been honest, or they didn’t tell the truth, or the facts show something else, and even that was seen as hot rhetoric.”
“就在不久之前，你還不能在競選中使用‘謊言’這個詞，”曾任奧巴馬政府通訊聯絡主任的安妮塔·鄧恩(Anita Dunn)說。“它被認為太過嚴厲，會產生適得其反的效果。所以你隻能說：他們不誠實，他們沒有說出真相，或者事實證明了其他東西，就連這樣也會被認為是非常激烈的修辭。”
With the rise of fact-checking websites, politicians are held accountable for their words. In 2013, the website PolitiFact declared that Obama had uttered the “lie of the year” when he told Americans that if they liked their health care plan, they could keep it. (Trump won “lie of the year” in 2015.)
隨著事實核查網站的興起，政客們也開始要對自己的話負責任了。2013年，PolitiFact網站稱，奧巴馬說出了“年度最大謊言”——他告訴美國人，如果他們喜歡自己的醫療保健計劃，就可以保留它。（2015年的“年度最大謊言”由特朗普獲得。）
“I thought it was unfair at the time, and I still think it’s unfair,” Dunn said, referring to Obama. Obama later apologized to people who were forced off their plans “despite assurances from me.”
“我當時認為這不公平，我現在還是認為這不公平，”鄧恩提到奧巴馬的那句話時這樣說。後來奧巴馬向那些被迫放棄自己醫療保健計劃的人道歉——“盡管我曾經向你們保證過。”
On the theory that politicians who get caught in lies put their reputations at risk, Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College (and contributor to The New York Times’s Upshot) and some colleagues tried to study the effects of Trump’s misstatements during last year’s presidential campaign.
達特茅斯學院(Dartmouth College)的政治學家布倫丹·尼漢（Brendan Nyhan，《紐約時報》Upshot欄目撰稿人）和幾個同事假定，如果政客被發現說謊，就會有聲譽受損的風險，他們試圖以此為前提，研究特朗普去年競選總統期間的錯誤陳述所產生的影響。
In a controlled experiment, researchers showed a group of voters a misleading claim by Trump, while another group saw that claim accompanied by “corrective information” that directly contradicted what Trump had said. The group that viewed the corrections believed the new information, but seeing it did not change how they viewed Trump.
在一個對照實驗中，研究人員向一組選民出示了一個特朗普的誤導性斷言，並向另一組選民同時出示這個斷言以及同特朗普的說法直接矛盾的“更正信息”。看到更正信息的小組相信新的信息，但是這並沒有改變他們對特朗普的看法。
“We know politicians are risk averse. They try to minimize negative coverage, and that negative coverage could damage their image over time,” Nyhan said. “But the reputational consequences of making false claims aren’t strong enough. They’re not sufficiently strong to dissuade people from misleading the public.”
“我們知道政客厭惡風險。他們試圖把負麵報道減少到最低限度，隨著時間的推移，負麵報道有可能會而損害他們的形象，”尼漢說。“但是做出虛假斷言並不能對政客的聲譽產生足夠的強烈影響，不足以阻止政客誤導公眾。”
Many of Trump’s lies — like the time he boasted that he had made the “all-time record in the history of Time Magazine” for being on its cover so often — are somewhat trivial, and “basically about him polishing his ego,” said John Weaver, a prominent Republican strategist.
特朗普的許多謊言多少有些雞毛蒜皮——比如他吹噓自己經常被《時代》報道，創下了“登上《時代》雜誌封麵的曆史記錄”；而且“基本上是他的自我美化，”共和黨著名策略師約翰·韋弗(John Weaver)說。
That mystifies Bob Ney, a Republican former congressman who spent time in prison for accepting illegal gifts from a lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, and lying to federal investigators about it. “It really baffles me why he has to feel compelled to exaggerate to exonerate himself,” Ney said.
共和黨前國會眾議員鮑勃·奈(Bob Ney)對此大惑不解，他曾因接受來自遊說者傑克·阿布拉莫夫(Jack Abramoff)的非法禮物，並就此向聯邦調查人員說謊而入獄。“這真的讓我感到困惑，為什麽他非得那樣誇張地宣稱自己沒有責任，”奈說。
But other presidential lies, like Trump’s false claim that millions of undocumented immigrants had cast ballots for his opponent in the 2016 election, are far more substantive and pose a threat, scholars say, that his administration will build policies around them.
但是總統的另外一些謊言呢，比如特朗普曾經錯誤地宣稱，2016年的選舉中有數百萬無證移民為他的對手投票，學者們說，這些謊言要重要得多，而且已經構成了威脅——特朗普的政府將會圍繞這些謊言製定政策。
The glaring difference between Trump and his predecessors is the sheer magnitude of falsehoods and exaggerations; PolitiFact rates just 20 percent of the statements it reviewed as true, and a total of 69 percent either mostly false, false or “Pants on Fire.” That leaves scholars like Goodwin to wonder whether Trump, in elevating the art of political fabrication, has forever changed what Americans are willing to tolerate from their leaders.
特朗普與前任們之間的明顯差異在於，其謊言和誇張之辭的規模；PolitiFact對特朗普的言論進行了調查，並將其中20％歸為真實，其餘69％則被劃為大部分虛假、虛假，或是“徹頭徹尾的謊言”。這讓古德溫等學者開始思考：通過提升政治謊言的藝術，特朗普是否永久改變了美國人對領導人的容忍度。
“What’s different today and what’s scarier today is these lies are pointed out, and there’s evidence that they’re wrong,” she said. “And yet because of the attacks on the media, there are a percentage of people in the country who are willing to say, ‘Maybe he is telling the truth.'”
她說，“如今和以往不同、也更加可怕的一點是：這些話明明已經被指出是謊言，而且有證據表明它們是錯的，然而，由於對媒體的攻擊，整個國家裏仍有一定比例的人會說，‘也許他是在說出真相。’”
