美国国家公共电台 NPR Trade Is An Identity Issue, And Trump Knows It

 

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Trade issues were a big part of Trump¹'s appeal in America's industrial areas, where he brought out a big surge of working-class, white voters. Danielle Kurtzleben writes for NPR Politics on our website. And she writes that it is his own form of identity politics. She's with us now. Good morning.

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE³: Hey, Renee.

MONTAGNE: Democrats⁴ have been criticized for relying too heavily on identity politics - so, you know, appealing to voters based on their race or their gender⁵ or their sexual orientation⁶. How does the president turn trade into an identity issue?

KURTZLEBEN: Right. So it's really easy to think of identity politics, you know, the way that it's often talked about in political discourse⁷ these days, which is that it's just about race or gender. But American voters, on both sides of the aisle⁸, identify in all sorts of ways. You can identify as a gun owner. You can identify by your religion. So when politicians talk about trade, manufacturing really is the key. And these new Trump tariffs⁹ - by the way, they're about steel and aluminum¹⁰. So they're about manufacturing. And Americans have a very emotional connection to manufacturing. Political strategists on both sides of the aisle have told me that. There's the sense among Americans that manufacturing jobs are special, that there is a certain kind of dignity about them, that they provide a decent wage - even for Americans who have no connection to that factory floor.

MONTAGNE: But how does trade, as a part of the American identity, compare with trade as part of the U.S. economy?

KURTZLEBEN: There's a lot more to trade than manufacturing. But we are talking about political speak. So manufacturing is what we're going to zoom¹¹ in on here. Now, manufacturing is still a sizable part of the U.S. economy. During the 1990s, manufacturing employment was on the downswing. But manufacturing output was on the upswing. A big part of that is automation. We just got way more efficient at it. So even while factories were shedding workers, we were doing much better at manufacturing. So, you know, to get back to the identity once again, back in the '40s, '50s, around one-third of American workers were involved in manufacturing. Today, that's much smaller. Instead of being a manufacturing country by employment now, we're a health care country. We are a country of teachers, of clerks at grocery stores, of government workers, office workers. That's really more what we are now.

MONTAGNE: Well, then when we talk about identity politics - and we often talk about it in relation to race or gender - here, with this more occupational form of identity, what still makes it so effective for political campaigns?

KURTZLEBEN: Well, so identity politics writ² large is very effective politically because it invokes¹² a feeling of belonging. I mean, the answer is right there - right? - in the word identity. People are emotionally tied to the ideas - these stories they have of who they are. You can make the case pretty easily that they're more tied to that than they're tied to particular, you know, taxes or tariffs or what have you. Now, manufacturing isn't overtly¹³ about race or gender. But, you know, Donald Trump's whole political persona is about nostalgia¹⁴, right? Make America Great Again. America's forgotten people.

He's a very backward-looking guy. And he likes to harken back to this era - the '40s, the '50s, the '60s, the '70s - when manufacturing employment was on the upswing. So that is how he brings that into it. And as one Democratic strategist, Jeremy Rosner, explained to me, harkening back to the era of the 1950s isn't just about harkening back to manufacturing. It's about harkening back to this time when a particular group of Americans - particularly white Americans and white men - were really on top.

MONTAGNE: That's NPR political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben. Thanks very much.

KURTZLEBEN: Thank you.

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1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 writ   

n.命令状，书面命令

参考例句：

• This is a copy of a writ I received this morning.这是今早我收到的书面命令副本。
• You shouldn't treat the newspapers as if they were Holy Writ. 你不应该把报上说的话奉若神明。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

6 orientation   

n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍

参考例句：

• Children need some orientation when they go to school.小孩子上学时需要适应。
• The traveller found his orientation with the aid of a good map.旅行者借助一幅好地图得知自己的方向。

7 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

8 aisle   

n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道

参考例句：

• The aisle was crammed with people.过道上挤满了人。
• The girl ushered me along the aisle to my seat.引座小姐带领我沿着通道到我的座位上去。

9 tariffs   

关税制度； 关税( tariff的名词复数 )； 关税表； （旅馆或饭店等的）收费表； 量刑标准

参考例句：

• British industry was sheltered from foreign competition by protective tariffs. 保护性关税使英国工业免受国际竞争影响。
• The new tariffs have put a stranglehold on trade. 新的关税制对开展贸易极为不利。

10 aluminum   

n.(aluminium)铝

参考例句：

• The aluminum sheets cannot be too much thicker than 0.04 inches.铝板厚度不能超过0.04英寸。
• During the launch phase,it would ride in a protective aluminum shell.在发射阶段，它盛在一只保护的铝壳里。

11 zoom   

n.急速上升；v.突然扩大，急速上升

参考例句：

• The airplane's zoom carried it above the clouds.飞机的陡直上升使它飞到云层之上。
• I live near an airport and the zoom of passing planes can be heard night and day.我住在一个飞机场附近，昼夜都能听到飞机飞过的嗡嗡声。

12 invokes   

v.援引( invoke的第三人称单数 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求

参考例句：

• The Roundtable statement invokes the principles of the free market system. 企业界圆桌会议的声明援用了自由市场制度的原则。 来自辞典例句
• When no more storage is available, the system invokes a garbage collector. 当没有可用的存贮时，系统就调用无用单元收集程序。 来自辞典例句

13 overtly   

ad.公开地

参考例句：

• There were some overtly erotic scenes in the film. 影片中有一些公开色情场面。
• Nietzsche rejected God's law and wrote some overtly blasphemous things. 尼采拒绝上帝的律法，并且写了一些渎神的作品。

14 nostalgia   

n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧

参考例句：

• He might be influenced by nostalgia for his happy youth.也许是对年轻时幸福时光的怀恋影响了他。
• I was filled with nostalgia by hearing my favourite old song.我听到这首喜爱的旧歌，心中充满了怀旧之情。