All politicians attack their opponents, but presidents see it as their duty to unite the country after a tragedy. 政客们都攻击对手，但总统本应在悲剧之后将团结国家视为己任。

Only Mr Trump would think the Tree of Life synagogue shooting a chance to hit back at the media and the Democrats for criticising him. 只有特朗普这位总统会认为犹太教堂“生命之树”枪击案是反击批评他的媒体和民主党的机会。

Only he would suggest that, rather than tone down his explosive rhetoric, he might just “tone it up”. 只有他会认为，相比缓和爆炸性言论，他可能只会“加强语气”。

Such divisiveness matters because, when your opponents are simply bad people, the compromise that is the foundation of all healthy politics becomes hard within parties and almost impossible between them. 这种分裂影响很大，因为当认为对手是坏人时，妥协——所有健康政治的基础，在政党内部很难达成，而不同政党间更是天方夜谭。

Mr Trump is not the only politician to wallow in division—just the most powerful and one of the most accomplished. 特朗普并不是唯一沉溺于分裂的政客——只是最有权势最有成就的。

Before he was elected, more than half of Democrats told pollsters that they were afraid of Republicans and almost half of Republicans said the same about Democrats. 在他当选之前，超过半数民主党人对民调机构说他们害怕共和党，几乎半数共和党人也说他们害怕民主党。

After a Republican congressman was shot by an unstable gunman last summer, leading Democrats expressed “outrage” at the idea that their rhetoric had played any part. 去年夏天，一名共和党国会议员被一名激进的持枪分子开枪击中，随后，民主党领导人就对“是因为民主党的花言巧语起了作用”的这种说法表达了愤怒之情。

Yet they used the attempted bombings and the synagogue shooting to begin a debate about the precise degree of presidential responsibility for domestic terrorism. 但是民主党利用未遂炸弹案以及犹太教堂枪击案，引发了一场关于总统对国内恐怖主义应负多少责任的辩论。

America’s democracy is robust—it was designed to be. 美国的民主是强大的——创建之始意图如此。

However, one by one, its institutions are being infected with toxic polarisation. 然而，相关机构相继都被有毒的两极分化感染了。

Congress caught the bug in the 1990s, when Newt Gingrich was Speaker. 20世纪90年代，纽特·金瑞奇时任议长，国会发现了这一问题。

The media have also fallen victim to partisan scepticism—certainly among audiences, if not also among contributors. 媒体也成了党派间互相猜忌的受害者——要么是媒体人，要么是观众。

Just 11% of strong Trump supporters believe the mainstream media, whereas 91% of them trust Mr Trump, a CBS News poll found in the summer. 哥伦比亚广播新闻今年夏天的一项民调发现，在特朗普的坚定支持者中，只有11%相信主流媒体，而91%相信特朗普。

Among Democrats those beliefs tend to be reversed. 在民主党中，则恰恰相反。

Now the Supreme Court is perceived to be partisan, too. 现在，最高法院也被认为卷入了党派之争。

Democrats see the recent confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the court as the ramming through of a partisan who has lied, possibly about a sexual assault, and who will be incapable of putting the law above his party. 近期布雷特·卡瓦诺宣誓就职最高法院，民主党将其视为一个强行通过的共和党人士，认为卡瓦诺可能在性侵问题上撒谎、且将法律凌驾于其政党之上。

Republicans, by contrast, see it as a triumph over a monstrous Democratic conspiracy to keep a decent man down. 相反，共和党把它看作是意图压制正派人的大阴谋的粉碎。

A dishonest executive, conniving with a fawning legislature and empowered by a partisan judiciary: were it to come to that, America truly would be in grave trouble. 一位不诚实的总统，和一个奉承讨好的立法机构共谋，由一位共和党法官授权：如果到了那种地步，美国真的会陷入严重的麻烦。