美国拥有这么多的精英，在疫情中会显得如此无智呢?

关键在于总统，美国这次失败的抗疫，如果只有一个失败原因，那就是联邦总统特朗普。

诚然，美国是民主而非集权体制，平时制衡机制掣肘多数事物，以防判断失误及借机揩油，但新难特急的事情一旦发生，总统制授予联邦总统相应的权利，可以调整各方资源分配决策和监督的权利，这是毋庸置疑的，不然，美国如何打得二战、卫星如何上天、特情如何开展？

但什么事情要紧急处理成为集权事务，什么事情放任制衡机制处理，这在于总统的判断与算计。大敌当前，全美利益当头，全球利益当头，这就是当年小罗斯福的判断；恐袭世贸，个人历史价值机会凸显，未来选举红利陡增，这是小布什的算计。

这些冠之以小的总统，都在历史关头准确及时地表演出了英明果断，特朗普呢？

于公，猥琐卑鄙；于私，糊涂颟顸。一向习惯于摄影棚闪光灯的照耀，却看不清大历史的聚光灯的闪耀，不禁令人扼腕美利坚的国祚。

“望之不似人君”这是最朴素的政治判断智慧，三年半了，秀得也够了，世界人民也看透了，这是一位年届七五却心智三岁的巨婴总统，幸好遇到的是新冠，如果是地外文明袭击，人类此次多半难逃覆没了，一人一票还可信乎？

公众号：西蒙搬运

美国在这次疫情中的失败已经有目共睹，看似“反智”的操作背后的深层原因是什么呢？CNN发表了一篇长文，理性客观地深刻分析了相关原因，非常值得仔细阅读。在其中我们可以看到美国人的价值观对他们行动方式的影响，以及他们与中国思维方式的区别。文章很长，先帮大家简单总结一下。

文中用了一个词，非常准确地对美国防疫工作做出了总结，就是“inconsistent”（不一致），即前后不一致，联邦政府和各州不一致，不同行业民众也不一致，完全无法团结起来。

而主要的原因有以下几点：

1. 推崇个人自由主义。这导致每个人按照自己的利益行事，而很难为他人，或者为集体利益行事。这使得面对公共危机很难“集中力量办大事”，公共利益很难保障。

2. 防控措施政治化。所有行动包括戴口罩，居家令，全部上升到政治层面，成为党派，地区斗争的筹码。对中国的甩锅也是典型的案例。政客只注重政治利益，而对民众利益毫不关心，甚至都没有对防疫工作进行全面计划。

3. 对权威的习惯性不信任。这导致很多人不能理性分析问题，不愿意接受政府或者科学家的建议，这甚至导致对科学的不信任，认为科学是权威者强加给个人的东西，是试图控制人们的手段。

纵观整个疫情中美国各种不合理的做法，基本原因都来自以上三点。而这几点的对立面，恰恰是中国在疫情防治中取得胜利的原因，也是中国所有民众达成的共识，即确保公众利益、生命健康优先和有组织的科学防治。通过这场疫情，也许会有很多美国人对长期以来坚持的价值观以及相关制度进行反思。

再次推荐大家可以仔细把本文读完。英文原文来自CNN，翻译来自西蒙，转载请注明“西蒙搬运”。

America's response to the coronavirus is the most American thing ever

美国对新冠疫情的应对是最“美国”的事情

2020.05.19

By Scottie Andrew, CNN

(CNN) - The US response to coronavirus has been consistently inconsistent. It's also uniquely American.

美国对冠状病毒的应对态度，自始至终唯一坚定的，就是它的不坚定性（不一致性)。这也是美国独有的。

There are no national guidelines and no organized efforts to reopen the country beyond what measures states have taken. Public health officials say one thing while governors say another and President Donald Trump says something else entirely. We Americans are left to make up our own minds.

在各州采取的措施之外，没有国家性指导方针，也没有任何有组织的努力来重启国家。公共卫生官员说的是一回事，州长们说的是另一回事，而唐纳德·特朗普总统说的完全又是另一回事。我们美国人只能被迫自己做决定。

It's a symptom of American individualism, a national value that prizes personal freedoms, limited government and free will over all else.

这是一种美国个人主义的表现，是将个人自由、有限政府和自由意志至于一切之上的国家价值观。

"It's always been the orientation of America on balance, compared to other countries, to put a priority on individual freedom and liberty," says Andrea Campbell, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies the intersection of politics and public health.

麻省理工学院政治学教授安德里亚·坎贝尔(Andrea Campbell)研究政治与公共卫生的交叉领域，她说：“与其他国家相比，美国的定位是一直以把个人意志与自由放在首位。”

It's the ideal that birthed the US, when colonists split from the British monarchy to establish their own nation. It powered pioneers who ventured west to the frontier, where they settled their own towns and made their own rules. It's in our DNA.

这种理想，早在殖民者从英国君主政体中分离出来，建立自己的国家——也就是现在的美国时，就已经诞生。它为当时的西部拓荒者创造了动力，在那里他们建立了城镇并制定了自己的规则。它已经存在我们的基因中。

It's also sown deep political divides, distrust of centralized authority and even skepticism of science. And it's informing the country's unruly response to this pandemic.

但与此同时，这也潜在地带来了政治分歧，对中央政府的不信任，甚至对科学的怀疑。现在整个国家在疫情中无序的反应也可以用其来解释。

It's reinforcing our partisan politics

它加强了我们的党派政治

Republicans and Democrats interpret individualism differently, and those divides are more pronounced than ever in our deeply polarized political climate.

共和党人和民主党人对个人主义的理解不同，在我们面临的严重两极分化的政治气候中，这种分歧比以往任何时候都更加明显。

Now, even the pandemic is refracted through an ideological lens.

现在，疫情也反应出意识形态相关的现象。

"Nothing binds groups together like facing a common enemy," says Ann Keller, a University of California-Berkeley associate professor who studies pandemic responses. "But we're still treating members of the other party as the enemy rather than the virus."

“没有什么比对抗共同的敌人更能把不同群体团结在一起了，”研究流行病应对的加州大学伯克利分校副教授安·凯勒（Ann Keller)说。“但我们仍将其他党派成员，而不是病毒，视为敌人。”

His supporters are listening. So are those who detest him. Both hear what they want to.

特朗普总统的支持者和反对者都在关注他的发声，但都只听到他们想听到的部分。

In an April CNN poll, a plurality of Americans (55%) said the federal government has done a poor job of preventing the spread of the coronavirus. But 80% of Republicans said the federal government has done a good job, and 85% of Democrats said the opposite.

在4月份CNN的一项民意调查中，多数美国人(55%)认为联邦政府在阻止新冠病毒传播方面做得很糟糕。但80%的共和党人认为联邦政府做得很好，而85%的民主党人持相反意见。（特朗普是共和党人）

Questions over reopening are fraught, too. More than half of Republicans in the same poll said they feel comfortable returning to their normal routines. Just a quarter of Democrats said the same.

关于国家重新开放的问题也令人担忧。在同一项民意调查中，超过一半的共和党人表示，他们很乐意重启正常生活。但只有四分之一的民主党人这么说。

Those opinions played out in state closures. Democrat-led California shut down on March 19, the first state to do so. Meanwhile, Republican-led states like Florida and Texas resisted shutting down until two weeks later and reopened relatively quickly.

这些数据在封城期间得到了体现。3月19日，民主党领导的加州首先实行禁行措施，这是第一个实行该措施的州。而共和党领导的佛罗里达和德克萨斯等州直到两周后才关闭，重新开放的时间也相对迅速。

In this unsettling time, even the wearing of a face mask has become a political statement.

在这段混乱的时间中，连戴口罩都成了政治声明。

It's possible for even a deeply divided America to overcome party divides. Keller points to President George W. Bush, whose popularity soared from the low 50s to 90% in the days after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Terrorism was a national threat, and there was no question of that threat's legitimacy.

即使是严重分裂的美国也有可能克服党派分歧。凯勒提到乔治·w·布什总统，在2001年9月11日的恐怖袭击后，他的支持率从50%飙升到90%。恐怖主义是一种国家威胁，这个定义的合法性是毫无疑问的。

But the coronavirus isn't being viewed in the same way.

但新冠病毒却没有被这样看待。

"We have the capacity to overlook party and get behind a president and get behind a cause," Keller says. "And we're just not seeing that in this pandemic."

“我们完全有能力忽略党派之争并支持总统，共同支持一项事业，”凯勒说。“我们只是没有在这次疫情中看到这一点。”

It's feeding anger toward state governments

对政府的愤怒日益增长

Americans have resented centralized power since they dumped tea in Boston Harbor. Many still bristle when they think politicians are stepping on their freedoms -- even in a pandemic.

自从1773年波士顿倾茶事件之后，美国人就对中央集权感到厌恶。当人们认为政治家正在践踏他们的自由时，许多人仍然感到愤怒——即使是在疫情期间。

Because there was never a nationwide stay-at-home order and the virus didn't unfold evenly across the country, some states took decisive early action, which might've helped them avoid potentially devastating outcomes, says David Rosner, a sociomedical historian at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

哥伦比亚大学梅尔曼公共卫生学院(Mailman School of Public Health)的社会历史学家戴维•罗斯纳(David Rosner)表示，因为从来没有发布过全国性的居家令，而且病毒在各地影响不同，一些州果断地采取了早期行动，这可能有助于他们避免潜在的破坏性后果。

"The fact that different states at different moments had the ability to shape their own reaction was a good thing," Rosner says. "They didn't depend on a federal government that had no coherent activity, actions or ability to shape a federal response to illness and disease."

“各州在不同时刻有能力建立自己的应对模式，这是一件好事，”罗斯纳说。“联邦政府没有具有协调性的行动，手段和能力来从联邦层面应对疾病，而各州并没有依赖联邦政府。”

Limited government is a conservative ideal, which may explain why Trump has handed the reins back to the states.

有限政府意是保守派想贯彻的理想，这或许可以解释为什么特朗普把控制权交还给了各州。

Without national guidelines and an organized response, states, counties and residents have been left to make their own choices, either in line with or against public health advice.

在没有国家指导方针和有组织的应对措施的情况下，各州、各县和居民只能自己做出选择，听从或反对公共卫生建议。

For weeks, protesters have led rallies to reopen their states' economies. And instead of directing their ire toward the federal government, they're targeting governors responsible for the stay-at-home orders.

几个星期以来，抗议者举行集会，要求恢复所在州的经济。他们没有把怒火指向联邦政府，而是把矛头对准了那些负责实施居家令的州长。

Republican governors like Maryland's Larry Hogan and Democrats like Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan have stoked the rage of residents who accuse them of stifling their rights to reopen their small business or go to a hair stylist.

马里兰州的拉里·霍根(Larry Hogan)等共和党州长和密歇根州的格雷琴·惠特默(Gretchen Whitmer)等民主党州长激起了当地居民的愤怒，他们指责州长扼杀了他们重启小型商业或去理发的权利。

But Americans have obeyed and even welcomed government intervention in past crises, Rosner notes. In the 1930s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt grew the federal government's powers permanently with New Deal programs that helped pull the country out of the Great Depression.

但罗斯纳指出，在过去的危机中，美国人服从甚至欢迎政府干预。上世纪30年代，美国总统富兰克林•德拉诺•罗斯福(Franklin Delano Roosevelt)通过“新政”项目，永久性地增强了联邦政府的权力，并帮助美国摆脱了大萧条。

And again during World War II, Americans largely accepted sweeping changes for the communal good. Food and clothing were rationed and the economy became almost entirely industrial -- all in service of the war effort.

第二次世界大战期间，美国人整体上为了公共利益而接受了彻底的变革。食物和衣服实行定量配给，经济几乎完全工业化——所有这些都是为战争服务的。

"We're not seeing Americans pull together in the way we thought they would, like the sacrifices made in World War II," Keller says. "People saw it as part of being an American, and people found meaning in those individual sacrifices. I think it's striking that we're not seeing that."

凯勒说：“我们没有看到美国人像想象中那样团结起来，像第二次世界大战中的牺牲那样。”“当时人们把它视为作为美国人的一部分，人们在个人的牺牲中也找到了意义。令人震惊的是，现在我们却没有看到这一点。”

It's reflecting our distrust of science

这反映出我们对科学的不信任

Rosner lived through the polio crisis in the 1950s. Lines outside physician's offices would wrap around buildings and down several blocks, and within 25 years, polio was virtually eradicated from the US.

罗斯纳在20世纪50年代经历过小儿麻痹症危机。诊所外面的长队把大楼围得水泄不通，队伍甚至长达几个街区。但在接下来25年内，小儿麻痹症在美国几乎被根除了。

The same may not be true if and when a coronavirus vaccine becomes available.

如果有了冠状病毒疫苗，这种情况可能就不会发生了。

That's because of a meager but vocal (and growing) mistrust in science, punctuated by the climate crisis and the anti-vaccine movement. People in these groups view scientific experts as dictatorial figures whose decisions strip people of their freedoms to choose what's best for them.

在气候危机和反疫苗运动的影响下，人们对科学的不信任，从很少的程度开始不断增加。这些团体中的人把科学专家视为独裁者，认为他们的决定剥夺了人们选择最好的东西的自由。

The most divisive scientific topics of our time, climate change and vaccination, are well-studied. The novel coronavirus is not. It emerged at the tail end of 2019, and we are still learning more about its transmission.

当下最具争议性的科学话题，气候变化和疫苗接种，相关研究已经很成熟了。但新型冠状病毒并没有。它出现在2019年底，我们仍在试图了解其传播的更多信息。

Guidance around it has changed rapidly, most notably where masks are concerned. That only fuels further mistrust in people already skeptical of science.

关于抗击病毒的指导方针在不停变化，最明显的是关于口罩的使用。这只会加深人们对科学的怀疑。

It's telling, too, that the CDC has taken a backseat in handling the crisis, Keller says. It started when the CDC's initial coronavirus tests failed and delayed the response for weeks. And CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield has been much less visible than Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

凯勒说，这也说明，在应对这场危机时，疾病控制和预防中心（CDC)处于次要地位。CDC最初的冠状病毒测试失败，导致防控措施延迟了数周。CDC主任罗伯特·雷德菲尔德博士比国家过敏与传染病研究所所长安东尼·福奇博士出现频率要低得多。

It may have weakened the White House's confidence in the health agency, Keller says.

这可能削弱了白宫对卫生机构的信心，凯勒说。

"For some reason, the CDC has not regained its footing and has not been given leave to create a national-level response," she says. "The organization that has always led pandemic responses nationally looks to be incredibly hobbled."

她说：“由于某些原因，CDC还没有确立起地位，也没有获准在国家层面做出应对措施。这个一直领导流行病全国性应对工作的组织，似乎受到了严重束缚。”

It's fortifying our belief that America knows best

它加强了我们对于美国最了解情况的信念

We defend our freedoms fiercely. We bark in the face of fear, and we don't like being told what to do. We're Americans, and we've emerged victorious from every crisis we've ever weathered, right?

我们坚决捍卫我们的自由。我们直面恐惧，并且不希望别人告诉我们该做什么。我们是美国人，我们曾在历次危机取得了胜利，不是吗?

So it's hard to imagine the US taking the same approach to the coronavirus as Hong Kong, where arriving passengers are apprehended at the airport, required to wear tracking bracelets and mandated to stay in quarantine for two weeks upon arrival. Our approach also wasn't as lax as Sweden, where residents have lived freely, without lockdowns, since the pandemic began.

因此，很难想象美国会采取与香港同样的方法来应对冠状病毒。在香港，入境旅客在机场被扣留，被要求佩戴追踪腕带，并在入境后强制隔离两周。我们的方法也不像瑞典那样宽松，自疫情开始以来，那里的居民自由地生活，没有任何限制。

We haven't followed any countries' leads. That's the American way — our individualistic identity is a global one, too.

我们没有跟随任何国家的脚步。这是美国的方式——我们的个人主义特征也是世界性的。

"Americans have this very strong sense of American exceptionalism -- that the US is different than other countries and superior in many ways," Campbell says.

坎贝尔表示：“美国人有这种非常强烈的美国例外论意识，即认为美国与其他国家不同，而且在许多方面更优越。”

The US and South Korea saw their first confirmed cases around the same time. But by mid-April, South Korea was counting only 30 new cases daily, compared to 20,000 in the US. That's because the East Asian country quickly opened hundreds of testing facilities, imposed quarantine measures on travelers from Wuhan, China, in early January and recruited contact tracers from the start.

美国和韩国发现首例确诊病例的时间几乎相同。但到4月中旬，韩国每日新增病例只有30例，而美国为2万例。这是因为韩国迅速启动了数百个检测点，在1月初就对来自中国武汉的旅客实施隔离措施，并从一开始就对人员流动轨迹与接触进行追踪。

（西蒙注：美国媒体承认韩国，甚至中国香港地区的防疫措施成功，却从来不承认中国防疫的成功，这仍然是美国的政治正确)

South Korea's model worked. The US lagged behind it.

韩国的模式奏效，美国落后了

"You'd imagine that people would take [other countries' responses] as evidence that continuing to quarantine and social distance are effective responses to the virus," Campbell says. "But what we've seen is kind of poo-pooing what other countries do and thinking we know best."

坎贝尔说：“你可以想象，人们会把(其他国家的应对)当作证据，证明继续隔离和保持社交距离是对抗病毒的有效措施。”“但我们看到的是对其他国家的做法一笑置之，认为我们最懂。”

It's leading our cost-benefit approach to the virus

这是我们对抗病毒的成本效益法

American individualism is the driving force behind another national value -- capitalism, which requires people to act in their self-interest.

美国的个人主义是另一种国家价值观——资本主义——背后的驱动力。资本主义要求人们按照个人利益行事。

So, when weighing the tradeoffs of social distancing, many Americans make their decision with some capitalistic cost-benefit analysis. The cost is life as we know it -- going to restaurants, shopping, visiting friends, working at an office. The benefit is our health, and the health of loved ones and strangers.

因此，在权衡社交距离的利弊时，许多美国人是通过一些资本主义的成本效益分析做出决定的。成本就是我们所熟知的生活——去餐馆，购物，拜访朋友，在办公室工作。效益是我们的健康，以及我们所爱的人和陌生人的健康。

Making sacrifices to help a stranger may be a hard sell for some.

对一些人来说，为了帮助陌生人而做出牺牲可能难以接受。

"The issue with the coronavirus is that it's not very visible," Keller says. "You don't know who you're protecting, who's avoided getting sick from your actions. That's a big ask of people, especially when it appears that not everyone is doing it or that the criteria seems to be different in different parts of the country."

“冠状病毒的问题就是它看不见摸不着，”凯勒说。“你不知道你在保护谁，谁又因为你的行动而避免了生病。这对人们来说是很高的要求，尤其是当不是每个人都在这么做，或者在全国不同地区有着不同标准的时候。”

Coronavirus isn't something we can see rip through the country like a tornado. The benefits, too, are invisible. If coronavirus guidelines work, they may not seem like they were ever necessary, because fewer people will have gotten sick.

冠状病毒并不像肆虐全国的龙卷风一样能够看见。因此抗击病毒的收益也是隐形的。如果冠状病毒防控指南起作用，这些指南就会看起来不是很必要，因为患病的人会很少。

But people will remember what they lost by making those sacrifices.

但是人们会记住他们为他人的牺牲中失去了什么。

It's easier for policymakers to weigh their response to coronavirus with a utilitarian approach. By that philosophy, the minority will suffer so that the majority may benefit.

决策者更容易用功利主义的方法权衡他们对冠状病毒的应对措施。按照这种思路，少数人会遭受损失，而大多数人得益。

More than 89,000 Americans have died from coronavirus. But more than 36 million have filed for unemployment. If lawmakers rely on that ratio alone to decide whether to reopen, the decision is already made.

超过89000名美国人死于冠状病毒。但已经有超过3600万人失业。如果立法者仅仅依靠这一比率来决定是否重新开放社会，那么这个决定已经不言自明。

But we can still fight this together

但是我们仍然会共同努力

If the virus is with us for many more months, we may move toward a united response, Keller says.

凯勒说，如果病毒与我们共存的时间更长，我们有可能会采取团结的应对措施。

"There is potential that we will see something that looks more like Americans pulling together, a more common view of what kind of sacrifices are necessary," she says.

她说：“我们有可能看到美国人齐心协力做一些事情，对需要做出的牺牲有普遍认同。”

Americans have "great traditions" of coming together when crises threaten us, Rosner says. From the Great Depression to 9/11, we've weathered conflicts that have tested our national mettle.

罗斯纳说，当危机袭来时，美国人有团结一致的“伟大传统”。从大萧条到9/11，我们经受住了对我们民族毅力的考验。

The conditions of coronavirus are more fraught than those crises, but Keller thinks that the longer we live with this, the greater the pressure to coalesce to defeat it.

冠状病毒的情况比那些危机更加令人担忧，但凯勒认为，病毒存在时间越长，受到要求团结起来战胜它的压力就越大。

Not every American subscribes to the historic definition of individualism that prizes oneself over the communal good. Some are exercising their individual will to stay home if they can, in line with public health advice. And those of us who can't stay home are largely following the safest protocols for how to act in the workplace.

并不是每个美国人都认同个人主义的历史定义，即把个人看得比公共利益更重要。有的人正在按照他们的个人意愿，按照公共卫生建议，尽可能呆在家里。而那些不能呆在家里的人，在很大程度上遵循着在工作场所中最安全的行为准则。

Americans don't want to live in fear of an invisible enemy, and we don't want our country to crumble. But to beat this crisis, we may need to balance individual liberties with collective sacrifice. That doesn't come naturally to us, but we can do it. We've done it before.

美国人不想生活在对看不见的敌人的恐惧当中，我们也不想看到国家崩溃。但要战胜这场危机，我们可能需要在个人自由与为集体的牺牲之间找到平衡。这对我们来说并不容易，但我们可以做到。我们以前曾经做到过。