In Kamala Harris’s big general-election debate four years ago, she faced off against an opponent with a fly on his head.

在四年前贺锦丽的那场大选辩论重头戏里，她面对的是一个脑袋上停了只苍蝇的对手。

In her immeasurably bigger debate on Tuesday night, she confronted an opponent with bats inside his.

周二夜的这场辩论，重要性比那一场又高了无数倍，而这一次，她面对的是一个脑袋里有蝙蝠的对手。

And out they came, flapping and screeching, when he brought up cats and dogs.

当他开始说起猫猫狗狗的时候，那些蝙蝠就扇着翅膀，尖叫着飞出来了。

Donald Trump was talking about what he couldn’t stop talking about — the millions of migrants who, he insisted, were depraved criminals being dumped on us by cackling foreign leaders — and in his indiscriminate zest to describe an American hellscape, he repeated debunked stories that in Springfield, Ohio, these desperate newcomers were noshing on Fido and Whiskers.

唐纳德·特朗普在说一个让他停不下来的话题——他坚称那些外国领导人狞笑着把成百上千万的移民扔到我们头上，这些人都是道德败坏的罪犯，他用指天骂地的激情描绘了一个地狱般的美国，他转述了发生在俄亥俄州斯普林菲尔德的一个已经被辟谣的故事，说这些初来乍到的恶人正在把你家的喵星人汪星人当点心吃掉。

“They’re eating the dogs. The people that came in — they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he sputtered, red-faced. Harris didn’t even have to correct him, because David Muir, one of the two ABC News anchors moderating the debate, got there first and did it for her.

“他们在吃狗。这些人到我们这里来——他们在吃猫。他们在吃当地人的宠物，”他脸涨得通红，唾沫飞溅地说。贺锦丽甚至不需要去纠正他，因为主持当晚辩论的两位ABC新闻主播之一戴维·缪尔已经出手，替她把谎言拆穿了。

Some dark fantasies need immediate dispelling. And some deranged fantasists need to be tugged back into reality before they wander so far from it that there’s no returning.

有些阴暗的幻想，需要立即驱散。而有些精神错乱的幻想者，需要被拉回到现实里来，否则他们会越飘越远，再也回不来。

Trump made a raving, rambling fool of himself on Tuesday night, and while Harris by no means did everything right, she had the good sense to alternately call him out on that and simply watch him unravel. She had the discipline to shake her head sadly and smile dismissively when he made laughably false accusations against her. She had the skill — here, on full display, was the prosecutor in her — to needle him into maximal seething.

对狂乱而恍惚的特朗普来说，这是个丢人现眼的夜晚，贺锦丽远远谈不上完备，但她只需要戳穿他，然后看着他自己曝露自己，就可以了。她能控制自己，面对他的那些令人捧腹的不实指控，她只是悲哀地摇着头，露出不屑的笑容。她掌握了把他激到火冒三丈的技巧——充分展现了她作为检察官的一面。

He looked livid.

他看上去怒不可遏。

She looked amused.

她看上去意兴盎然。

He scowled.

他绷着脸。

She smiled.

她在微笑。

After a slightly rocky start, she projected confidence.

虽然开头有些踉跄，她还是展现了自信心。

After a somewhat confident start, he staggered down the rockiest of roads.

虽然开头显得好像有些自信，他接下来一路跌跌撞撞。

And all that predebate chatter about his being a foot taller than she is and how that might visually diminish her? Most of the televised debate was a split screen of their two faces, and it was Trump who ended up looking small.

辩论前，人们在热议他如何比她高出一个头不止，他的形象如何让她显得渺小。这次的电视转播大多数时候是两张并置的脸，结果显得渺小的是特朗普。

He spent most of the 90 minutes on the defensive, and while both of them kept repeating their favorite put-downs of the other and boasts about themselves, Trump’s vocabulary disintegrated entirely by night’s end. He was a broken record with lyrics as redundant as they were incoherent.

在90分钟里，他大多数时间处于守势，两人都在重复各自偏好的那些贬低之词，并夸赞自己，但特朗普到最后已经彻底词穷。他就像一张破唱片，而且歌词显得既冗赘又语无伦次。

Will that performance hurt him on Nov. 5? Impossible to say, because at this point the battiness is old hat. But he was a particularly unattractive version of his titanically arrogant, spectacularly dishonest and shockingly ill-informed self, claiming that Democrats were slaughtering newborns, that Harris was a Marxist, that he’d championed the Affordable Care Act, that the Jan. 6 rioters were veritable peaceniks and that as soon as he turns his gilded hand to the war between Russia and Ukraine — abracadabra! — it will magically end.

这次的表现，会影响他在11月5日的成绩吗？这是无法确定的，毕竟错乱癫狂对我们来说都已经习以为常。但他那无与伦比的自大，他的谎话连篇，他那骇人的无知，这一次以格外难看的方式呈现了出来，他声称民主党人在杀害新生儿，贺锦丽是个马克思主义者，而他是《平价医疗法案》的支持者，1·6事件中的暴徒都是货真价实的和平主义者，还有俄乌战争只需他大手一挥——急急如律令！——就会奇迹般结束。

Maybe such a florid exhibition of his delusions before an enormous television audience this close to Election Day really will make a difference, especially because Harris successfully presented herself as a stark contrast to him. I don’t mean all those “turn the page,” no-going-back lines from her stump speech, which sounded as canned as they were. I don’t mean her honeyed calls to optimism and patriotism.

在如此接近选举日的时候，面对如此多的电视观众，把自己的胡思乱想就这样鲜活地呈现出来，也许的确会造成不小的影响，尤其考虑到贺锦丽成功地树立了一个与他截然不同的形象。我说的不是她磕磕绊绊的演讲中那些“翻篇”、不回头之类的话，那听起来的确想是没过脑子。也不是说她那些讨好人的乐观主义和爱国主义呼吁。

I mean her demeanor — steady, rational, reasonable — and the fact that when she talked about Ukraine, China and energy, she sounded much better educated than he did. She was more fully and fluently versed in his record than he was in hers, and that enabled her to make a methodical, compelling case about his lawlessness, untrustworthiness on abortion rights and adoration of autocrats the world over.

我说的是她的风度——沉稳、冷静、通情达理——而且当她谈起乌克兰、中国和能源问题的时候，听上去远比他要有修养。她对他的过往表现做出了更充分且熟练的陈述，远远强于他对她的陈述，这让她可以按部就班地有力论证他对法律的罔顾，他在堕胎权上的不可靠，以及他对世界上的专制者的仰慕。

“They can manipulate you with flattery and favors,” she said, staring at him. “And that is why so many military leaders who you have worked with have told me you are a disgrace.”

“他们可以用恭维和好处来操控你，”她盯着他说。“这就是为什么有那么多跟你共事过的军方领导人跟我说，你很丢人。”

Boom! She was that blunt at times, and the measure of contempt in her voice was just right — not as much as he deserved, not so little that it dulled her point. And she’d done her homework. He never does his. It’s beneath him: Buckling down to homework suggests that he’s not already perfect — a word he, of course, used to describe himself on Tuesday night — as is.

砰！她有时就是可以如此直截了当，而且话语中保持了适度的轻蔑——相比他应得的轻蔑，还是略有收敛，但又足够明显，不至于让她的论述显得苍白。她是做过功课的。他则什么也没做。他不屑于准备：闷头做功课等于在说他还没达到尽善尽美——而我们知道，周二晚上他说了，他就是完美的。

In fact, one of the ways her debate performance definitely helped her was in exposing Trump’s incessant denigration of her intelligence as the reflexive nastiness and trash talk it is. He got the failing grade on Tuesday night. She indisputably passed.

在谈及被她机智地称为“特朗普堕胎禁令”的政策所造成的破坏时，她的表现很精彩，但在被问到是否支持任何堕胎限制政策时，她却闪烁其词了。她的确在躲闪，一遍又一遍地避免正面回答问题，转向有关原则的宣言，对政策的提议，或对特朗普的控诉。

But while she was brilliant when discussing the damage done by what she shrewdly termed the “Trump abortion bans,” she was evasive when asked whether she supported any abortion restrictions. She was evasive, period, routinely answering questions by not answering them and pivoting to statements of principle, pitches for her policy proposals or indictments of Trump.

她在压裂采油和无授权越境行为的入刑等问题上摇摆不定，她曾承诺对此会给出个清楚的解释。但她没给。

At one point she promised that she’d clearly explain inconsistencies in her positions over time on fracking and on the criminalization of unauthorized border crossings. She didn’t.

在围绕这次辩论的初步评论中，我不认为这些会成为重点，但我确信这会是个挥之不去的烦人问题。从她2019年、2020年给出的声明，到她现在表明的立场，这样的转变尚待她做出解释。这一点越早处理，她的胜算就越大，而她必须获胜。特朗普刚刚提醒了我们为什么。

And while I don’t think that will be the focus of the first phase of commentary about the debate, I guarantee it will linger and fester. An explanation of her journey from statements she made in 2019 and 2020 to statements she makes now is unfinished business. The sooner she attends to it, the better her chances of victory, and her victory is imperative. Trump just reminded us why.

她显然还必须跟拜登总统保持明确的距离，这件事什么时候做呢？周二晚上她有不止一次机会，但她只是在回应特朗普的其中一段咆哮时开玩笑说，“你不是在跟乔·拜登竞选，”这样的话光有骨架子，没有往里填肉。她还是太忌讳说些对他不敬的话了。

And when will she do what she also clearly must and establish more separation between her and President Biden? She had several opportunities on Tuesday night, and while she made a joke by responding to one of Trump’s many rants about the president by telling him that “you’re not running against Joe Biden,” she put no flesh on those bones. She’s too afraid of dishonoring him.

但要敬重拜登，最有意义、最理想的方式就是用尽一切手段打败特朗普。拜登总是说，他一头扎进2020年总统选战，就是为了从特朗普手里把这个国家夺回来，因为他构成的威胁是美国无法承受的。如果贺锦丽能成功阻止特朗普入主白宫，拜登的2024退选就有意义了——大家也会原谅他当初迟迟不肯面对现实。没时间讲究这些了。现在可是危急关头。

But the best and most meaningful way to honor Biden is by doing whatever it takes to beat Trump. Biden has always said that he jumped into the 2020 presidential race to wrest the reins of the country from Trump, an unendurable threat to it. And Biden’s exit from the 2024 race would be validated — and his long delay in surrendering to that necessity forgiven — if Harris kept Trump away from the White House. This is no time for delicacy. The stakes forbid it.

特朗普是可以击败的。这在周二之夜体现得再清楚不过。

And Trump can be beaten. That was the clearest takeaway on Tuesday night.

他缺乏准备，明显心神不宁，只剩下了辱骂和嘲弄的本事：拜登整天躺在沙滩晒太阳。贺锦丽放着重要的国事不管，去跟女生联谊会的姐妹们重聚。此外她也拿不出正经的经济计划。

Insufficiently prepared and demonstrably perturbed, he was reduced to insults and catcalls: Biden was a beach bum. Harris shirked important matters of state for a sorority reunion. And she had no real plan for the economy.

“好像就四句话，”特朗普抱怨道。“快跑，斯波特，快跑。”（斯波特是系列童书“迪克和珍”中的一只小狗。——译注）

“It’s, like, four sentences,” Trump groused. “Run, Spot, run.”

呃，这是三个词吧。而且，斯波特之所以要跑，不就是为了不被做成熟食么？