精彩而危險的“特朗普秀”

It has become a global ritual: you wake up each morning and grab your phone to catch up on the latest episode of The Trump Show, the addictive reality TV series. Which character has been humiliated, investigated or sacked? This has been the most distracting political year of my lifetime, and potentially the most dangerous. It’s not only Trump’s fault. After all, we are the viewers.

這已經(jīng)成了一個全球習慣：每天早晨醒來，拿起手機觀看“特朗普秀”的最新劇集，這是一個讓人容易上癮的電視真人秀節(jié)目。哪個角色被羞辱、調(diào)查或炒掉了?今年是我一生中最讓人分神的政治年份，潛在也是最危險的。這不僅僅是特朗普的錯。畢竟，我們是觀眾。

People in reality TV admire Trump as an astute professional. In 2015, after US TV audiences began to fall, he jumped to politics and put on a new show. This is not a metaphor: he still thinks like a reality performer. Reality TV perches between fiction and non-fiction, which is the spot where Trump feels happiest. Reality shows have scripted plots or formats, but partially real characters. Trump, several of whose companies have been bankrupted, played a successful businessman on TV, and so viewers could imagine him playing one in the White House.

電視真人秀的業(yè)內(nèi)人士敬佩特朗普是一個精明的內(nèi)行。2015年，在美國電視觀眾數(shù)量開始下滑后，他投身政壇，推出了一檔新節(jié)目。這不是比喻：他的思維仍像一個真人秀演員。電視真人秀介于虛構(gòu)與真實之間，這是特朗普感覺最快樂的地方。真人秀編排了情節(jié)或模式，但角色是部分真實的。旗下曾有好幾家公司破產(chǎn)的特朗普，在電視上塑造了一個成功商人的角色，因此觀眾可以想象他在白宮也飾演這樣一個角色。

Season one of Trump’s political show was the presidential campaign. It used the standard industry format known as “reality competition” (kicking the other contestants off the island), only with bigger stakes (the presidency) and A-list celebrities (who rarely consent to appear on reality TV).

特朗普“政治秀”的第一季是競選總統(tǒng)。它利用被稱為“真人秀比賽”的標準行業(yè)模式(把其他參賽者淘汰)，只是賭注更大(總統(tǒng)職位)，還有一流名人(這些人很少同意在電視真人秀出場)。

In season two, Trump is improvising a new format. It largely dispenses with boring political characters, especially now that Congress probably won’t pass any major bills. Instead, the cast consists of Trump’s relatives (who can’t be kicked out of Trumpworld) and his posse (who can). The relatives were born into the show so they understand Trump has to be the star, but some posse members fail to grasp what genre they’re appearing in. John Kelly, for instance, imagines he is Trump’s chief of staff, whereas in fact he’s The Trump Show’s new Marine-general character.

進入第二季后，特朗普正在即興創(chuàng)作一種新模式。它基本上棄用了枯燥的政治人物，特別是在國會很可能不會通過任何重大法案的情況下。相反，演員表包括特朗普的親戚(他們無法被踢出特朗普圈子)以及他的隨從團隊(這些人可以被淘汰)。他的親戚們從小習慣了這個節(jié)目，因此他們知道特朗普必須是明星，但他的隨從團隊的一些成員不明白自己要出場的節(jié)目是什么體裁。例如，約翰•凱利(John Kelly)以為他是特朗普的幕僚長，而實際上，他在“特朗普秀”中扮演的角色是新的海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊將軍。

But they are all dispensable characters. The ideal star of a reality series is an uninhibited narcissist who gradually reveals the inner reaches of his personality. As the reality TV producer Troy DeVolld explained in 2013: “That’s when celebrity casting works for me — when you actually get to see who somebody is, beneath who you thought they were when they came into it.”

但他們都是可有可無的角色。真人秀系列中的理想明星是一個狂放不羈的自戀狂，他會逐漸暴露自己個性中隱藏的一面。正如真人秀電視劇制作人特魯瓦•德沃爾德(Troy DeVolld)在2013年解釋的那樣：“這是名人角色挑選讓我產(chǎn)生成就感的時候：當你真正看到某個人是什么樣的，當他們顯露出在他們進入劇中之初你的印象背后的真面目。”

The Trump Show is broadcast non-stop on both social media and TV, so its pace is unprecedented. Judged as entertainment, it’s vastly superior to the Barack Obama series. Whereas all other TV shows are now niche, this one appeals to all demographics. When Trump defenestrated his latest communications chief, I heard a nine-year-old excitedly shout: “Scaramucci’s fired!”

“特朗普秀”在社交媒體和電視上都是不中斷播放的，因此劇情的進展速度是空前的。從娛樂效果來看，它遠遠勝過巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)劇集。所有其他電視節(jié)目現(xiàn)在都是小眾的，而這個節(jié)目吸引所有人群。當特朗普炒掉最新的白宮通訊主任時，我聽到一個9歲的小孩興奮地大叫：“斯卡拉穆奇(Scaramucci)被炒啦!”

Scripted reality TV gives viewers a role too. The main character’s actions simply kick off each episode. The plot is then driven by the reactions of other characters, and often by audience voting. Elite viewers and journalists get especially absorbed in The Trump Show, because they kid themselves that they are watching serious programming, and because they generally hadn’t watched reality TV before and are surprised to discover how enjoyable it is.

經(jīng)過編排的電視真人秀還讓觀眾獲得了角色。主角的行為開啟了每一集。接下來的情節(jié)是由其他角色的反應來驅(qū)動的，經(jīng)常是通過觀眾投票。精英觀眾和記者對于“特朗普秀”特別投入，因為他們欺騙自己，以為自己在觀看嚴肅節(jié)目，還因為他們以前一般不看電視真人秀，現(xiàn)在意外地發(fā)現(xiàn)這種節(jié)目很好玩。

But they tend to misunderstand the conventions of the genre, and accuse Trump of lying when in fact he’s performing in a show. They also complain he doesn’t have a concentration span. Of course he doesn’t: in reality TV, if you spend a few minutes developing complexity, the audience switches off.

然而，他們往往誤會這種體裁的規(guī)矩，指控特朗普撒謊，而實際上他只是在一個節(jié)目中表演。他們還抱怨他沒有專注力。他當然沒有：在電視真人秀中，如果你花上幾分鐘把情節(jié)搞得復雜，觀眾就會關(guān)掉電視。

The broader problem is that we viewers — the smartphone generation raised in peacetime — have no concentration spans either. Trump is the fitting president for our era. No wonder that another merchant of distraction, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, thinks he can be president next.

更大的問題是我們這些觀眾(在和平時期長大的使用智能手機的一代)也沒有專注力。特朗普是迎合我們這個時代的總統(tǒng)。難怪另一個善于分散人們注意力的商人、Facebook的馬克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)認為他可以當下屆總統(tǒng)。

Some liberals worry that Trump is distracting us in order to implement some master plan, such as bringing fascism to America. He isn’t. Trump doesn’t care about policy, though some people in Trumpworld do. He’s a lowbrow entertainer, so he produces lowbrow entertainment.

一些自由派人士擔心，特朗普分散我們的注意力是為了實施一些總體計劃，例如把法西斯主義帶到美國。他沒有這個意思。特朗普不關(guān)心政策，盡管特朗普圈子的一些人確實關(guān)心政策。他是一個低俗的表演者，因此他制作出的娛樂也是低俗的。

However, he is trying to distract us from one storyline that he can’t control: his campaign’s ties with Russia. Often a firing coincides with news about Russia. He rages at leakers of such news, partly because they derail his show. But he cannot keep viewers hooked merely by firing press secretaries. And Congress won’t let him fire the Robert Mueller character, the villain who is leading the Russian investigation. Trump therefore needs to create a new A-plot: by firing a major character such as Steve Bannon (who is frantically pretending to be a minor character), or perhaps by bombing Pyongyang.

然而，他試圖讓我們轉(zhuǎn)移對一個他無法控制的情節(jié)的關(guān)注：他的總統(tǒng)競選活動與俄羅斯的關(guān)系。炒人舉措往往與有關(guān)俄羅斯的消息同時出現(xiàn)。他對這些消息的泄露者大發(fā)雷霆，部分原因是他們擾亂了他的秀。但他不能一直靠解雇新聞秘書來吸引觀眾。而國會不會讓他解雇羅伯特•米勒(Robert Mueller)，領導通俄調(diào)查的“反面角色”。因此特朗普需要炮制一個新的重大情節(jié)：炒掉史蒂夫•班農(nóng)(Steve Bannon)(此人瘋狂地假裝自己是個次要角色)，或者轟炸朝鮮。

That’s one of the existential dangers from which The Trump Show distracts us. The other one is climate change. Almost nobody is watching this boring show without human characters, but meanwhile giant icebergs break off into the Antarctic, forest fires ravage Europe and a study in the journal Nature Climate Change estimates a 95 per cent chance that average global temperatures will rise more than 2C by 2100.

這是事關(guān)生死存亡的危險之一，而特朗普秀轉(zhuǎn)移了我們對它的關(guān)注。另一個危險是氣候變化。幾乎沒有人在觀看這場沒有人類角色的枯燥節(jié)目，但同時巨大的冰山在南極斷裂，森林大火在歐洲肆虐，《自然氣候變化》(Nature Climate Change)雜志的一項研究估計，到2100年，全球平均氣溫升幅有95%的幾率超過2攝氏度。

We saw a decade ago, even before smartphones, that distraction can lead to destruction: incomprehensible credit-default swaps caused the global financial crisis. Neil Postman’s classic 1985 study of television, Amusing Ourselves to Death, ends with the warning that “we are in a race between education and disaster”. I know which one my money’s on.

10年前，甚至在智能手機問世之前，我們就看到，注意力分散可能會造成破壞：讓人費解的信貸違約互換(CDS)造成了全球金融危機。尼爾•波茲曼(Neil Postman)在1985年有關(guān)電視的經(jīng)典研究《娛樂至死》(Amusing Ourselves to Death)在結(jié)尾處發(fā)出警告，“我們正處于教育和災難之間的一場競賽中”。我知道我的賭注要押在哪一邊。