翻译数据库中英对照：美国对华认知中的谬误和事实真相 [6]
Reality Check: Falsehoods in US Perceptions of China [6]
◆美式民主是建立在资本基础上的“富人游戏”，金钱政治贯穿美国选举、立法、施政的所有环节，实际上限制了民众的参政权利，经济地位的不平等已经转变为政治地位的不平等。据统计，91%的美国国会选举都是由获得最多资金支持的候选人赢得，而大企业、少数富人以及利益集团出手更加阔绰，成为选举资金的主要来源。这些所谓“民意代表”成功当选后，往往为其背后的金主服务，化身既得利益的代言人，而不是为普通民众发声。一位美国联邦参议员一针见血地指出：“有些人认为美国国会控制着华尔街，然而真相是华尔街控制着美国国会”。
◆ The American-style democracy is a rich men’s game based on capital. Money politics penetrates the entire process of election, legislation and administration in the US. People in fact only have a restricted right to political participation. The inequality in economic status has turned into inequality in political status. According to statistics, winners of 91 percent of US congressional elections are the candidates with greater financial support. Big companies, a small group of rich people, and interest groups are more generous to offer financial support and have become the main source of electoral funding. The so-called representatives of people’s will, once elected, often serve the interests of their financial backers, and speak for vested interests rather than the ordinary people. A US Senator had a sharp observation, “Congress does not regulate Wall Street. Wall Street regulates Congress.”
美国阿拉巴马州共和党众议员莫·布鲁克斯在社交媒体视频中公开驳斥“美国国会腐败体系”，称美国议员若想要获得国会主要委员会的席位就必须购买，费用多寡取决于委员会的重要性，顶级委员的席位起价为100万美元。布表示：“如果议员付不起这笔钱，就必须接受特殊利益集团的捐款，然后在上任后感谢那些政治说客，特殊利益集团掌控着华盛顿，我并不是在打比方，我是认真的。”
US Republican congressman from Alabama Mo Brooks publicly denounced “corruption” of the US Congress in a video on social media. “If you want to be chairman of a major committee, you have to purchase it.” The purchase price depends on how important the committee is, with the minimum bid for a major committee being one million US dollars. Those who cannot afford it have to accept the contributions of special interest groups and then give “quid pro quos” to the lobbyists. “Special interest groups run Washington. I don’t mean that metaphorically, I mean that literally.”
◆新加坡学者表示，可以明显地看出，美国是一个富豪统治国家，而不是一个民主国家。民主代表的是民有、民治、民享的政府，富豪统治则意味着，政府是被那百分之一的富豪有、富豪治、富豪享。
◆ According to a scholar in Singapore, the United States is clearly not functioning as a democracy. It is functioning as a plutocracy. A democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. A plutocracy is a government of the one percent, by the one percent, for the one percent.
◆美国总统选举遵循选举人团制度，总统和副总统由选举人团投票决定。这种选举制度弊端十分明显：一是当选总统可能无法赢得多数普选票，代表性不足；二是具体选举规则由各州自行决定，易发生乱象；三是“赢者通吃”制度加剧各州、各党地位不平等，造成巨大选票浪费并抑制投票率，深蓝州、深红州选民往往遭忽视，摇摆州获得相对非对称重要性，成为两党竞相拉拢的对象。美国历史上出现过5次赢得了全国普选票却输掉总统选举的情况。
◆ The US presidential election follows the Electoral College system, where the president and vice president are elected by the Electoral College. The flaws of such an electoral system are self-evident. First, as the president-elect may not be the winner of the national popular vote, there is a lack of broad representation. Second, as each state gets to decide its own electoral rules, confusion and disorder often occur. Third, the winner-takes-all system exacerbates inequality among states and between political parties. It leads to a huge waste of votes and discourages voter turnout. Voters in deep blue and deep red states are often neglected, while swing states become disproportionately more important where both parties seek to woo more supporters. There have been five presidential elections in US history in which the winner of nationwide popular vote was not elected the president.
“杰利蝾螈”是美国民众公认的选举制度一大弊病，即指通过不公平的选区划分，帮助本党赢得尽可能多的议席，巩固优势地位。美国每10年进行一次人口普查，然后按“各选区人口大致相等”原则并结合人口变化情况重新划分选区。美国宪法将划分选区的权力赋予各州立法机构，为州议会多数党“杰利蝾螈”提供操作空间。2021年YouGov舆观调查网民调显示，仅16%选民认为本州能够公平划分选区，44%认为不能，其余40%表示不确定。
The gerrymandering is widely recognized by the US public as a flaw of the electoral system. It refers to an unfair division of electoral districts in favor of a particular party to win as many seats as possible and cement its advantage. The US conducts a census every ten years. Following the completion of the census, redistricting or the redrawing of electoral district boundaries will take place under the principle of maintaining roughly equal population in every voting district while considering demographic shifts. Under the US Constitution, each state legislature has the power to redistrict. This leaves room for gerrymandering by the majority party in a state legislature. According to a YouGov poll in 2021, only 16 percent of US adult citizens say they think their states’ congressional maps would be drawn fairly, while 44 percent say they think the maps would be drawn unfairly and another 40 percent of adults say they are unsure if the maps will be fair.
◆美式民主名为“一人一票”，实为“少数精英统治”。“多元政治”只是一种表面现象，精英们把持政治、经济、军事等方面的统治地位，操控国家机器，制定规章制度，把握舆论风向，主导商业公司，行使各种特权等等。
◆ The American-style democracy is “one person one vote” in name, yet “rule of a dominant minority” in reality. Political pluralism is only a facade. A small number of elites dominate the political, economic and military affairs. They control the state apparatus and policy-making process, manipulate public opinion, dominate the business community and enjoy all kinds of privileges.
根据美联社报道，美2020年人口普查结果遗漏了1880万人口，其中黑人人口被遗漏3.3%，西班牙裔约为5%，印第安人为5.6%，这种遗漏将导致少数族裔在获取教育、医疗、住房等资源以及选区划分等方面处于明显不利地位，体现了美国民主的虚伪及其“系统性种族主义”。
According to the Associated Press, 18.8 million people were missed in the 2020 US census. The black population had a net undercount of 3.3 percent, while it was almost five percent for Hispanics and 5.6 percent for American Indians and Native Alaskans living on reservations. The undercount robs them of their equal share of federal resources including in education, health care and housing and puts them in an unfavorable condition as to congressional apportionment. It reveals the hypocrisy in the US democracy and its “perpetuating systemic racism”.
美国麻省理工学院政治评论家与社会活动家诺姆·乔姆斯基指出，美国是“真实存在的资本主义民主”，美国人对政策制定的影响力与他们的财富水平之间呈正相关性，约70%的美国人对政策制定没有任何影响，他们在收入水平、财富等方面处于劣势，相当于被剥夺了参政权利。
Noam Chomsky, a political commentator and social activist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out that the US is a “really existing capitalist democracy”, where there is a positive correlation between people’s wealth and their influence on policy-making. For the lower 70 percent on the wealth/income scale, they have no influence on policy whatsoever. They are effectively disenfranchised.
美国非营利组织“21世纪民主”组织主席韦特海默曾直言，美国的腐败是政治过程本身的系统性腐败，当你经手数十亿美元，其中大部分用于购买影响力时，体制就遭到破坏，且更难维护普通美国人的代表权。
Wertheimer, President of the non-profit US organization Democracy 21, says that corruption in the US is systemic corruption of the process itself. “When you are dealing with billions and billions of dollars, much of that focused on buying influence, it overwhelms the system, and it is much harder to defend against and maintain representation for ordinary Americans.”
美国独立记者丹尼·海防认为，西式民主把选举本身视为最高成就，这一制度是否服务于广大人民的需求这一问题通常被忽视，完全为用来掩盖这样一个事实——即强大的西方利益集团在投票之前就已设定了政策议程。
Danny Haiphong, an independent journalist in the US, believes that Western-style democracy views the election itself as the highest achievement. The question of whether this system serves the needs of the broad masses of people is generally ignored in order to obscure the fact that powerful corporate interests set the policy agenda well before votes are cast.
注：为确保中英对照准确，“热词译”网站可能对中英文重新分段。