Andrew Yang’s Quest to ‘Make America Think Harder’
杨安泽的竞选之路：从“痴人说梦”到获得主流认可

PLAISTOW, N.H. — Meet Andrew Yang supporters and they often have a confession to make: When they first heard about Yang, they thought his plan to give every American adult $1,000 a month was a little crazy. But then, they will inevitably tell you, they heard him explain it, and it all started making sense.

新罕布什尔州普莱斯托——见到杨安泽(Andrew Yang)的支持者时，他们经常会坦白：第一次听说杨安泽的时候，他们觉得他每月给每个美国成年人1000美元的计划有点儿疯狂。但接着，他们必定会告诉你，听了他对这个计划的解释后，一切都显得说得通了。

“He was a meme — his campaign was a joke,” said Ben Longchamp, 20, a college student from Atkinson, New Hampshire, who first saw Yang speak in May, at a restaurant in Portsmouth. “I’ve seen 14 candidates at this point, and what I like about him is he has this one policy proposal, and he has the data to back it up.”

“他以前就是一个米姆——他的竞选是个笑话，”新罕布什尔州阿特金森的大学生、20岁的本·隆尚(Ben Longchamp)说，5月，在朴茨茅斯的一家餐馆里，他第一次看到杨安泽讲话。“如今我已经看了14个候选人，我喜欢他是因为，他有这么一个政策提案，并且有数据做支撑。”

Shannon Jeanes, 44, a construction worker from Bedford, New Hampshire, said he was drawn to Yang because he seemed to care about ideas like a $1,000 “universal basic income” more than personal ambition. “He’s not running because he wants to be president,” Jeanes said. “He’s running because he feels he needs to be.”

44岁的香农·珍尼斯(Shannon Jeanes)是新罕布什尔州贝德福德的一名建筑工人，他说他被杨安泽吸引，是因为他似乎更关心像1000美元这样有关“全民基本收入”而非个人野心的概念。“他参选不是因为他想当总统，”珍尼斯说。“他参选是因为他觉得自己需要这样做。”

One of the most surprising developments of the 2020 presidential race has been the intensely loyal and passionate following for Yang, a former entrepreneur and tech executive making a bid for the Democratic nomination. Armed with numbers, history lessons and the occasional self-deprecating joke, he has been preaching a grim gospel about how automation will lead to mass unemployment and how corporate profits are warping the economy. Enough Americans have started to take him seriously that Yang has emerged as the surprise qualifier for a slimmed-down third Democratic debate, which will be held Thursday in Houston.

2020年总统竞选最意想不到的一个发展，就是人们对杨安泽的极度忠诚和热情追随，这位前企业家和技术高管正在角逐民主党提名。凭借数字、历史课和偶尔的自嘲笑话，他一直在宣传一条严峻的讯息，即自动化将导致大规模失业，而企业利润在扭曲经济。许多美国人已经开始重视杨安泽，使之意外获得资格，能参加周四于休斯敦举行的缩减了人数的第三次民主党辩论。

Yang, 44, remains one of the least known candidates in a group that includes senators, mayors, a governor and a former vice president. He is far from the only one with policy chops. And he is, as ever, a long shot for the nomination, as evidenced by the fact that he is still polling in the low single digits.

在包括参议员、市长、州长和前副总统的团体中，现年44岁的杨安泽仍是最不为人所知的参选人之一。他远非唯一有政治韬略的人。并且他获得提名的希望一如既往地渺茫，他的民调仍处于个位数低位的事实可以证明这一点。

But voters who attended his campaign events during a swing through New Hampshire last month rarely described him as a futurist fringe-candidate pitching a pie-in-the-sky plan. Instead, many said they had come to regard him as a smart, substantive and affable political outsider offering a thoughtful solution to an existential problem that other candidates have largely ignored.

但在他上月走遍新罕布什尔的竞选活动中参加过集会的选民里，很少有人觉得，他是个提出一份不切实际计划的未来派外围参选人。许多人反而表示，他们开始认为他是个有头脑、讲求实际、有亲和力的政坛局外人，针对其他竞选者大大忽视的一个现有问题，拿出了经过深思熟虑的解决方案。

More broadly, Yang’s supporters said they found his almost apolitical approach refreshing. Rather than participate in daily brinkmanship over immigration and gun control or level attacks on President Donald Trump, Yang has used his platform to gently lecture the country about the “fourth industrial revolution” — which he fears will put truck drivers, call-center workers and retail clerks out of work — and to offer universal basic income as a way to soothe the pain he says such a revolution will assuredly cause.

从更广的层面讲，杨安泽的支持者表示，他们发现他的这种几乎无关政治的方式令人耳目一新。杨安泽没有参与移民和控枪之类老生常谈的边缘政策讨论，或是攻击唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)总统，他利用自己的施政纲领，温和地向美国讲述“第四次产业革命”——他担心，这场革命将导致卡车司机、客服热线中心员工和零售店员失业——并提出以发放全民基本收入的方式，缓和这样一场革命必然会带来的阵痛。

Yang has attracted an ideologically eclectic coalition that includes progressives, libertarians, disaffected voters and Trump supporters who have swapped their red MAGA hats for blue ones that say MATH — “Make America Think Harder.” Those who have come into his camp say his presence on YouTube, on podcasts and in the nationally televised debates helped them begin to see the logic behind giving people free money.

杨安泽所吸引的支持者联合体在意识形态上不拘一格，包括进步派、自由意志主义者、心怀不满的选民及部分特朗普支持者，他们换下写着MAGA的红帽子，戴起写着MATH——“让美国更认真思考”的蓝帽子。进入他阵营的人表示，他在YouTube、博客上的发言和全国电视辩论开始让他们看到发钱给人背后的逻辑。

His performance in Houston could be crucial to sustaining his campaign’s newfound momentum. In the days immediately after the July debates, Yang’s campaign raked in about $1 million — more than a third of what his team had raised during the entirety of the second quarter. About 90% of the people who gave were new donors.

他在休斯敦的表现，对于维持竞选刚刚聚起的势头可能至关重要。在7月辩论结束之后的几天里，杨安泽的竞选团队迅速入账约100万美元——比团队整个第二季度筹得的数额多三分之一。约九成捐款者为首次捐款。

More and more, Yang and his advisers have allowed themselves to flirt openly with the idea that they have achieved something that long eluded them: mainstream recognition.

杨安泽和他的顾问们开始越来越多地允许自己半真半假地公开谈论，他们实现了长期实现不了的一点：主流认可。

“I’ve been coming to New Hampshire every month for the last year-plus,” Yang, standing atop a soapbox, told a room packed with supporters at the christening of the Nashua office. “When I first showed up, honestly no one knew who I was. The growth from then to now — it’s staggering.”

“这一年多以来，我每个月都来新罕布什尔，”在纳舒厄办公室命名仪式上，杨安泽站在临时搭建的讲台上，对满满一屋子的支持者说。“刚开始来的时候，说实话没人知道我是谁。从那时到现在的变化——着实惊人。”

Indeed, as recently as May, Yang strutted into a park in Lebanon, New Hampshire, to find only a few dozen voters waiting to meet him. Back then, those who showed up conveyed more curiosity than commitment.

诚然，就在5月，杨安泽还曾阔步迈入新罕布什尔州黎巴嫩一个公园，却发现只有几十个选民等着见他。那时候，来见他的更多是出于好奇，而非认同。

Three months later, the situation had changed. Yang would ask his audience questions — Which state has passed universal basic income? — and a chorus of supporters would yell back the answer on cue: “Alaska!”

三个月后，形势变了。杨安泽会向观众提问——哪个州通过了全民基本收入？——支持者会立即齐声喊出答案：“阿拉斯加！”

At his events in New Hampshire, those fans tended to skew largely white, slightly male and very young. Many of them were in college or had just graduated; a noticeable share described themselves as liking both Yang and Trump.

在他的新罕布什尔集会上，粉丝大多是白人，男性略多且非常年轻。其中很多人在上大学或者刚毕业；相当多一部分人自称同时喜欢杨安泽和特朗普。

Still others leaned libertarian and praised Yang for his plan to give people money and then get out of the way. Some professed to be former supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, saying that they saw in Yang a newer, fresher champion of progressive causes who was advancing ideas that might prove to be ahead of their time.

还有一些人倾向于是自由意志主义者，他们称赞杨安泽给人们发生活费然后不插手别的事。一些人承认曾是佛蒙特州参议员伯尼·桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)的支持者，表示他们在杨安泽身上看到的，是一个更新、更鲜的进步事业捍卫者，他所推动的理念可能会被证实领先于时代。

Yang’s big-city rallies can draw thousands and tend to attract more diverse crowds, including an unusually high share of Asian Americans.

杨安泽在大城市的集会可吸引数千人，并倾向于吸引多元化的人群，其中亚裔美国人比例异常高。

On the trail, Yang, like many of his rivals, likes to paint his campaign as one powered primarily by grassroots enthusiasm and modest donations. An analysis by The New York Times bore that out, finding that about 70% of donations he received in the second quarter of the year came from people giving $200 or less.

在竞选造势中，杨安泽和很多对手一样，喜欢把自己的竞选描绘成主要由草根群体的热情和少量捐款推动。《纽约时报》一项分析证实了这一点，发现他今年第二季度收到的约70%的捐款来自捐款金额为200美元或以下的人群。

A separate analysis of Yang’s approximately 133,000 total donors through June 30 showed that the average contribution to his campaign was about $27. Because approximately 20% of his donors gave multiple times, the average amount received from each person was about $40.

另一项对截至6月30日的约13.3万名捐赠者的分析显示，杨安泽的竞选活动平均捐款约为27美元。因为他的捐赠者中大约有20%的人捐了多次，所以每人平均捐款金额约为40美元。

The donor data also reinforced a demographic trend apparent at Yang’s campaign events: Less than 30% of his donors were women, according to estimates by OpenSecrets.com and The Times.

捐赠数据也证实了杨安泽竞选活动中明显的群落分布趋势：据OpenSecrets.com和《纽约时报》估计，他的捐赠者中只有不到30%是女性。

The crowds at Yang’s New Hampshire meet-and-greets also noticeably lacked older voters. Some who did attend said they wanted to hear Yang out, even though they professed to preferring someone who had logged more experience working in Washington.

杨安泽在新罕布什尔州的见面会也明显缺少年长选民。一些参加见面会的人说，他们想听听杨安泽的意见，尽管他们声称更喜欢在华盛顿工作的那些经验更丰富的人。

Ann Engelkemeir, 67, of Epsom, New Hampshire, said she was leaning toward voting for Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts or Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. But she and others said they found Yang personable and acknowledged that a core part of his appeal was that he was not a career politician.

67岁的安·恩格尔凯米尔(Ann Engelkemeir)来自新罕布什尔州的埃普索姆，她说自己倾向于投票给马萨诸塞州参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦(Elizabeth Warren)或明尼苏达州参议员艾米·克洛布查尔(Amy Klobuchar)。但她和其他人说，他们觉得杨安泽很有风度，并承认他的魅力核心来自于他并非职业政治家。

“Some of the candidates, when they’re asked a question, they give the response they’ve practiced that is closest to the question,” Engelkemeir said at one event. “I do think he answers questions much more directly than I’ve heard.”

“有些候选人被问到一个问题的时候，给出的回答是他们演练过的最接近这个问题的答案，”恩格尔凯米尔在一次活动上说。“我认为他回答问题的方式比我以前听到的要直接得多。”

During that event, hosted by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, Yang found himself in front of an audience full of voters who, like Engelkemeir, were largely unfamiliar with him.

在那次由新罕布什尔州美国公民自由联盟主办的活动中，杨安泽面对的选民和恩格尔凯米尔一样，对他基本上并不熟悉。

He ticked off a comedic and at times ungenerous retelling of his backstory: unhappy corporate lawyer; founder of a business that experienced a “mini rise and maximum fall”; and eventually the leader of a test-preparation company that was bought by Kaplan in 2009.

他用幽默的、时显简略的方式回顾了一遍自己的背景：不开心的公司律师；经历了“小涨大跌”的企业创始人；最终成为一家备考公司的领导者，该公司于2009年被卡普兰(Kaplan)收购。

Yang told The Washington Post Magazine this year that he “became a millionaire” after he sold the company, but stipulated that “my net worth is probably much lower than speculation would lead one to believe.” In financial disclosure forms filed this summer, Yang reported assets worth as much as $2.4 million, putting him on par with many other candidates in the race.

今年，杨安泽在接受《华盛顿邮报杂志》采访时表示，他在出售公司后“成了百万富翁”，但他也强调，“我的净资产可能远低于人们的预期。”在今年夏天提交的财务披露表格中，杨安泽上报了高达240万美元的资产，与其他许多候选人不相上下。

Amid the recession, Yang moved on to develop Venture for America, a nonprofit entrepreneurship organization for college graduates that created jobs in underserved cities.

在经济衰退期间，杨安泽创办了“为美国创业”(Venture for America)，这是一个面向大学毕业生的非营利性创业组织，在服务不足的城市创造就业机会。

When Trump was elected president in 2016, Yang says he started digging into data to try to understand why, and he found that millions of manufacturing jobs had been wiped out in swing states because of automation. It dawned on him that his good-faith effort to create jobs was wildly insufficient. A more sweeping solution was necessary: $1,000 a month for every American.

2016年特朗普当选美国总统时，杨安泽说，他开始研究数据，试图理解其中原因，他发现，由于自动化，摇摆州的数百万制造业工作岗位已经消失。他意识到，他为创造就业岗位所做的真诚努力是远远不够的。有必要实行更全面的解决方案：每个美国人每月1000美元。

“Universal basic income is an amazingly hard policy to demonize,” said Matt Clark, 36, a college adviser from Massachusetts who supports the idea and believes Republicans will get behind it. “It’s super simple, and it directly addresses so many Americans.”

“全民基本收入是一项很难被妖魔化的政策，”36岁的马萨诸塞州大学顾问马特·克拉克(Matt Clark)说。“它极其简单，而且直接面向这么多美国人。”

来源：纽约时报