Are we not entertained? No polls could capture the weirdness of the past seven days in American politics. It began in Milwaukee amid Republican euphoria that history was finally on Donald Trump’s side. It ended with a surge in Democratic enthusiasm for vice-president Kamala Harris as their overnight champion. In between, a Covid-stricken Joe Biden caved to demands not to run again. There was also the strange anointing of Yale-educated, Silicon Valley-funded JD Vance as America’s hillbilly-in-chief. It will be a while before we can reliably gauge what voters make of all this.
难道我们不觉得好玩吗？没有任何民调能够捕捉到过去七天美国政治的怪异之处。这七天始于威斯康星州密尔沃基，当时共和党全国代表大会的与会者欣喜若狂，认为历史终于站在唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)一边。等到七天结束时，民主党人对副总统卡玛拉•哈里斯(Kamala Harris)热情高涨，突然觉得她是他们值得拥护的冠军。在中间几天，染上新冠的乔•拜登(Joe Biden)屈服于要求他退选的压力。此外，曾在耶鲁大学(Yale University)深造、后来得到硅谷资助的JD•万斯(JD Vance)奇怪地被特朗普选为竞选搭档，从而成为美国的“首席乡下人”（万斯写过回忆录《乡下人的悲歌》——译者注）。我们还需要一段时间才能可靠地判断选民对这一切的看法。