JOSEPH O’NEILL2026年9月16日2025年1月20日，特朗普总统就职典礼后，杰夫·贝佐斯现身国会大厦圆形大厅。 Pool photo by Chip SomodevillaPROFILES IN COWARDICE: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era, by Jacob Weisberg《懦夫群像：特朗普时代的“共犯”研究》，雅各布·韦斯伯格 著(PROFILES IN COWARDICE: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era, by Jacob Weisberg)Say what you like about President Trump, he has ushered in a golden age of cravenness. A nation long perceived, not least by its own nationals, as resilient and courageous — a people of gallant pioneers, fearless entrepreneurs, irresistible war heroes, nerveless astronauts, brave civil rights activists — is now forced to contemplate an entirely new set of data. It seems that, when placed under mild authoritarian pressure, an extraordinary number of powerful Americans, ostensibly honorable and right-thinking, quickly revealed themselves to be cowardly and unprincipled and made of the wrong stuff.对特朗普总统你可以有各种评价，但你不得不承认，他开启了一个怯懦的黄金时代。长期以来，美国一直被视为一个坚韧而勇敢的国家——至少在美国人自己的认知中。这里的国民是英勇的拓荒者、无畏的创业者、所向披靡的战争英雄、沉着冷静的宇航员和勇敢的民权活动人士，如今，这个国家却不得不面对一组全新的事实。事实似乎表明，在些许的威权压力下，数量惊人的美国权势人物——表面正直、深明是非——迅速暴露出怯懦、无原则的本质，原来不过是徒有虚名之辈。The journalist Jacob Weisberg is one of the first to attempt to chronicle this new landscape. In a dismal inversion of the John F. Kennedy classic “Profiles in Courage,” Weisberg’s “Profiles in Cowardice” offers case studies of eight representative men and women “who recognized the danger Trump posed to American values, who had the ability to say no to him and who at earlier moments showed flickers of integrity — but who, when a more serious test came, failed to act courageously, in ways that reveal both their moral weakness and the fragility of the institutions they represented.”记者雅各布·韦斯伯格是最早尝试记录这一新景象的人之一。相较于约翰·肯尼迪的经典之作《勇者群像》(Profiles in Courage)，他的《懦夫群像》呈现出一幅令人黯然失望的反向图景，书中选取了八位具有代表性的男女作为案例研究对象，他们“都清楚地意识到特朗普对美国价值观构成的威胁，都有能力对他说‘不’，并且在此前的某些时刻也曾闪现出正直的火花——但当真正严峻的考验来临时，他们却未能拿出勇气挺身而出，这种行为既暴露了他们自身道德上的软弱，也暴露了他们所代表的制度是何等脆弱。”His focus is 2025, the first year of the second Trump administration, when we witnessed what Weisberg terms “the Great Capitulation.” The author’s specimens of moral failure are drawn, as they should be, from the country’s supposed crème de la crème: Brad Karp, the former chair of the law firm Paul, Weiss; the private equity mogul Steve Schwarzman; the Amazon founder and Washington Post proprietor Jeff Bezos; the media personality Megyn Kelly; the former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell; the former President George W. Bush; the Dartmouth College president Sian Beilock; and last but certainly not least, John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States.本书聚焦于2025年，也就是特朗普重返白宫执政的第一年，当时我们亲眼目睹了韦斯伯格所谓的“大投降”。作者选取的道德失败样本，理当来自这个国家所谓的精英中的精英：宝维斯律师事务所前主席布拉德·卡普，私募股权巨头苏世民(Stephen Schwarzman)，亚马逊创始人、《华盛顿邮报》老板杰夫·贝佐斯，知名媒体人梅根·凯利；前参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔，前总统乔治·W·布什，达特茅斯学院校长西安·贝洛克，最后当然还有美国首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨。Weisberg’s intention isn’t simply to lambaste these individuals, even as he hopes that shaming them will serve a useful purpose. Because cowardice “wears disguises: pragmatism, realism, caution, institutional loyalty,” he investigates the specific situational and psychological forces at play in the moral downfall of each of his subjects, taking care, it must be said, to acknowledge that it isn’t straightforward to resist lawless state power.韦斯伯格的目的并不只是痛斥这些人，尽管他希望对他们的羞辱能够发挥一些有益的作用。因为怯懦“会披上各种伪装：实用主义、现实主义、谨慎、对机构的忠诚”，所以他考察了每个研究对象在道德堕落过程中所面临的具体处境和心理动因，同时必须承认的是，他也谨慎地指出，抵抗无法无天的国家权力并不容易。Standing your ground can be frightening; it can negatively affect one’s career and net worth; it can leave one socially isolated; and, when you’re trying to discharge institutional responsibilities, it can feel ethically complicated. But in the final analysis, Weisberg suggests, the rights and wrongs were pretty clear. His subjects are voluntary members of the American elite who were at no risk of imprisonment or impoverishment.坚守立场固然令人心生畏惧；它可能损害一个人的事业前途和身家财产；它可能让人陷入社交孤立；而当你试图履行一个机构赋予你的职责时，这甚至可能在道德伦理上让人备感纠结。但韦斯伯格认为，归根结底，是非曲直其实相当清楚。他笔下的这些人物都是自愿参与其中的美国精英阶层成员，根本不存在锒铛入狱或倾家荡产的风险。Nobody made Karp transform Paul, Weiss into a quisling law firm. It was not force majeure that made Beilock respond to the Republican attack on academic freedom with a uniquely deferential strategy. Bezos and Kelly always had the option of not selling their souls. Schwarzman, a billionaire many times over and a onetime Jeb Bush Republican, had no need to recast himself as a Trump loyalist. No rule of political life compelled George W. Bush to remain largely silent about his party’s assault on the American experiment. As for Mitch McConnell — well, let’s not speak ill of the undead.没有人强迫卡普把宝维斯变成向权力俯首称臣的律所。面对共和党对学术自由的攻击时，贝洛克所采取的那种格外恭顺的策略也并非出于不可抗力。贝佐斯和凯利始终可以选择不出卖灵魂。苏世民是身家数十亿美元的亿万富翁，曾经还是杰布·布什的共和党支持者，他根本没有必要把自己重塑为特朗普的忠诚拥护者。政治生活中也没有任何一条规则，逼着乔治·W·布什对其所在政党对美国民主实验的攻击基本保持沉默。至于米奇·麦康奈尔——好吧，我们还是不要说活死人的坏话了。And then there’s the case of John Roberts, whom Weisberg views as part doormat, part flawed Shakespearean hero: “The triumph of Roberts’s jurisprudence,” he suggests, “came at the worst possible moment. Just as a lawless president was returning to power, the immunity ruling in Trump v. the United States granted him legal cover for tyranny.” Poor Justice Roberts! There’s a divinity that shapes his ends, rough-hew them how he will.再来看约翰·罗伯茨。韦斯伯格认为，他一半像任人践踏的门垫，一半像有缺陷的莎士比亚式英雄人物。他写道，“罗伯茨司法理念的胜利发生在最糟糕的时刻。就在一个无法无天的总统重新掌权之际，‘特朗普诉美国案’中的豁免权裁决为他的暴政提供了法律掩护。”可怜的罗伯茨大法官！任他如何谋划自己的命运，冥冥之中自有力量替他安排结局。 I assess the chief justice differently. I think that he falls into the same category as Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk. Like them, Roberts is an ideologue rather than a moral weakling: He ruled in favor of Trump not out of a misplaced juristic conscientiousness but precisely because he wanted to protect and empower a Republican president brazenly attacking the constitutional order.我对这位首席大法官的评价则不尽相同。我认为，他其实与斯蒂芬·米勒、皮特·海格塞斯和埃隆·马斯克属于一类人。和他们一样，罗伯茨是一个坚定的意识形态分子，而非什么意志薄弱之辈：他做出有利于特朗普的裁决，并非出于错位的法学良知，而恰恰是因为他想保护和赋权一位悍然攻击宪政秩序的共和党总统。Political invertebrates will always be with us, of course: See the recent ignominy of Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado (freeing a would-be election tamperer at the insistence of Trump), one of many powerful Democratic officials whose fecklessness and timidity will soon receive separate examination.当然，政治上的软骨头永远都会存在：看看科罗拉多州州长贾里德·波利斯最近的不堪举动吧——在特朗普坚持要求下，他释放了一名企图破坏选举的人。像这样的例子还有很多，许多手握权力的民主党官员的懦弱和胆怯，他们很快将受到另行审视。It must be pointed out, as Weisberg does in this valuable and dauntless book, that for every poltroon in high places, thousands of ordinary citizens have raised their heads above the parapet, none more bravely and persistently than the people of Minnesota as they protected their neighbors from rampaging federal officers. Their example upholds what’s left of this country’s reputation for courage.必须指出，正如韦斯伯格在这本可贵、无畏之作中所述，尽管身居高位者中不乏懦夫，成千上万的普通民众却挺身而出。其中最勇敢、最坚持不懈的莫过于明尼苏达州人民，他们保护邻居免受联邦官员的暴行。正是他们的这种榜样维护了这个国家残存的勇敢声誉。PROFILES IN COWARDICE: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era | By Jacob Weisberg | Penguin Press | 255 pp. | $31《懦夫群像：特朗普时代的“共犯”研究》| 雅各布·韦斯伯格 著 | 企鹅出版社 | 255页 | 31美元翻译：杜然点击查看本文英文版。获取更多RSS：https://feedx.net https://feedx.site