当特朗普引发宪法危机时

You have to sympathise with America’s 44th president. As post-presidencies go, Barack Obama’s would have been among the best — still young, massively in demand and happily married to someone with no plans to run for high office. Instead, he has been thrust back into a very unwelcome spotlight by Donald Trump. He is unlikely to leave it.

你必须对第44任美国总统表示同情。与以往的美国总统卸任时相比，巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)本应算极为幸运的——仍然年轻、不愁去处、婚姻幸福、且妻子无意竞选要职。然而，他却被唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)以极为讨厌的方式重新推到聚光灯下。他不太可能轻易走出聚光灯。

Mr Obama may even be dragged into a constitutional crisis over Mr Trump’s claim that he personally ordered the wiretapping of the Trump campaign. To paraphrase the aphorism about war, Mr Obama may not be interested in Mr Trump. But Mr Trump is interested in him. You might say that he is obsessed.

由于特朗普声称奥巴马亲自下令窃听特朗普的竞选活动，奥巴马甚至可能被拖入一场宪法危机。仿照有关战争的名言来说，奥巴马或许对特朗普不感兴趣。但特朗普对奥巴马感兴趣。你或许可以说他有点着魔了。

Mr Trump’s Obamaphobia stretches back years. In 2011, Mr Obama was forced to produce his long-form birth certificate to disprove Mr Trump’s claim that he was born in Kenya.

特朗普的“奥巴马厌恶症”(Obamaphobia)可以追溯到多年前。2011年，奥巴马被迫出示详细的出生证明，来反驳特朗普声称他生于肯尼亚的说法。

At the time, most of us laughed off the property mogul’s claim as the publicity stunt of a crank. We laughed even louder when Mr Obama mocked Mr Trump at the White House correspondents’ dinner a few weeks later. The reality TV star, Mr Obama said, could finally get back to the things that matter, such as “did we fake the moon landing?” and “what really happened at Roswell [the site of an alleged UFO crash]?”

当时，我们大多数人把这位房地产大亨的说法当做奇葩作秀一笑了之。数周后当奥巴马在白宫的记者晚宴上嘲讽特朗普时，我们笑得更大声了。奥巴马当时说，那位真人秀明星终于可以把注意力放回到有意义的事上了，比如“我们是不是伪造了登月”以及“罗斯威尔（Roswell，所谓UFO坠毁的地点）到底发生了什么”？

Mr Obama’s humour was based on the quaint assumption that there was a clear boundary between grown-up politics and madcap conspiracy theories. The fact that he was at that moment weighing Osama bin Laden’s kill order retrospectively put a seal on the wit. By a horrendous twist of fate, the epistemological shoe is now on the other foot. The White House is now the source of “Elvis Presley faked his death”-type stories. In the past week, rightwing websites have published stories that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is about to arrest Mr Obama for illegal wiretapping, that a Floridian drug dealer whom Mr Obama pardoned had murdered his girlfriend, and that Mr Obama is plotting a coup to overthrow Mr Trump.

奥巴马当时的幽默建立在这个传统假设上：成熟的政治和疯狂的阴谋论之间存在明显的界限。当时他正在考虑杀死奥萨马?本?拉登(Osama bin Laden)的命令，过后看来，这足以证明这一假设的正确。可怕的是，世易时移，认知这只鞋如今穿在了另一个人的脚上。眼下白宫成了“猫王埃尔维斯?普雷斯利(Elvis Presley)伪造了自己的死”之类新闻的来源。过去一周，右翼网站发布了这些新闻：联邦调查局(FBI)即将以非法窃听为由逮捕奥巴马，获奥巴马赦免的一名佛罗里达毒贩谋杀了自己的女友，奥巴马正密谋发动政变推翻特朗普。

On Tuesday Mr Trump tweeted that 122 Guantánamo Bay prisoners who had been released by Mr Obama were back on the battlefield. It was wildly inaccurate. Of the 714 former Guantánamo prisoners who have been transferred, 121 are fighting again — all but eight of whom were released by George W Bush. None of this can be laughed off. Millions of Americans believe such stories. More will come.

周二，特朗普在Twitter上表示，奥巴马释放的122名关塔那摩湾(Guantánamo Bay)囚犯返回了战场。这一说法极不准确。在714名被移交的前关塔那摩湾囚犯中，121人再次参与了作战——但除8人外其他人全部是小布什(George W. Bush)释放的。我们无法对这些事情一笑置之。数百万美国人相信了这些新闻。未来还会有更多这样的事情。

The question is where it will lead. Mr Obama has remained silent. It would be better if he kept his powder dry. At some point, Mr Trump will provoke a genuine constitutional emergency. It could be in response to an actual terrorist attack or to a fake one. Or it could come about as a result of Mr Trump’s escalating battle with the “deep state” of intelligence agencies and bureaucrats whom he alleges are working with Mr Obama to destroy his presidency.

问题是形势将如何发展。奥巴马一直保持沉默。他最好随时准备应战。或迟或早，特朗普会引发一场真正的宪法危机。危机可能会在面临一次真正或伪造的恐怖袭击时爆发。导致危机爆发的还可能是特朗普与“暗深势力”(deep state)——他声称正在与奥巴马合作以摧毁他的总统任期的情报机构和官员——不断升级的斗争。

Whatever the trigger, it will come. At that point, Mr Obama should combine with all living former presidents, including George Bushes junior and senior, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, to defend America’s constitutional liberties. It will be all the more powerful if each has kept his counsel until that point.

无论导火索是什么，危机肯定会爆发。到那时，奥巴马应该和所有在世的前总统（包括老布什、小布什、比尔?克林顿(Bill Clinton)以及吉米?卡特(Jimmy Carter)）联手，捍卫美国的宪法自由。如果他们中每个人都把自己的忠告保留到那一刻才说，那么释放出来的威力会更强大。

Against that, however, is the growing demand from the left that Mr Obama spearhead opposition to Mr Trump. This is assisted by the fact that the Democratic party has no obvious leader — or generation of new leaders waiting in the wings. Some of the party’s sorry condition is clearly on Mr Obama’s conscience. He left office with the Democratic party in its worst state since the 1920s. In addition to losing control of both chambers of Congress, the Democrats today have 16 governorships, compared with 28 when Mr Obama was elected and six states where it controls both chambers plus the governorship versus 17 when he came to office.

然而，与之相对的是左翼要求奥巴马带头反对特朗普的呼声日益高涨。推动这种呼声的一个因素是：眼下民主党没有一位明显的领袖，也没有一代新的领袖作后备。民主党的一些糟糕境况明显令奥巴马心怀愧疚。他卸任后的民主党处于自1920年代以来最糟糕的状态。除了失去对国会两院的控制权外，如今只有16个州长是民主党人，相比之下奥巴马当选总统时有28个州长是民主党人；只有6个州民主党控制着两院且州长为民主党人，而在他上任时这样的州有17个。

If that picture holds in 2020, Republicans will be able to gerrymander districts in their favour for another decade. It could enshrine Trumpism as the dominant force in US politics. It is a spectre that clearly haunts Mr Obama, who told voters that his legacy was on the ballot in November. It is still on the ballot.

如果这一情况持续到2020年，共和党将可以拥有又一个十年时间将选区重新划分得有利于该党。这可能会使特朗普主义成为美国政坛的主导力量。这是明显萦绕在奥巴马心头的恐惧，他曾在去年11月告诉选民，他的政治遗产取决于他们的投票。目前依然如此。

Even if Mr Obama resists such demands, Mr Trump will keep pulling him back into the arena. In the weeks before Mr Trump took office, Mr Obama bent over backwards to welcome his successor. In a fleeting moment of gratitude, Mr Trump said: “I don’t know if he’ll admit it, but he [Obama] likes me.” Mr Trump would have been closer to the truth if he had declared what is really gnawing at him. Mr Obama won twice with a clear majority, whereas Mr Trump lost the popular vote. He can never forgive him for that.

即使奥巴马回绝了这些要求，特朗普也将继续把他拖回到竞技场上。在特朗普上任前数周，奥巴马竭尽所能地欢迎这位继任者。在一个心怀感激的瞬间，特朗普曾说：“我不知道他是否会承认，但他（奥巴马）喜欢我。”如果特朗普说出实际上折磨着他的事，他就离真相更近了。奥巴马曾两度以明显优势胜选，而特朗普输掉了普选。因为这一点，他永远也没法原谅奥巴马。