第2728期:Why you should be able to vote on your phone(1)

So let me ask you a question. How many of you do your banking, your health care on your phones? Right, of course you do. How about like, your love life, your entertainment, travel planning, all that kind of stuff? Right. How many of you vote on your phones? That's the problem.

那我问你们一个问题。你们当中有多少人是在手机上处理银行业务或健康事务的？对吧，当然是这样。那你们的恋爱、娱乐、旅行计划这些呢？也是如此，对吧？那有多少人是在手机上投票的？这就是问题所在。

So I spent the first 15 years of my career working in US government and politics. City government, state government, federal government, you name it, I saw it from pretty much every angle. And the main thing that I took away from it, really, more than anything else, is why politicians make the decisions they make. Is it based on what they believe in? No. Is it what's best for their city or their state or their country? Not really. How about what's best for their constituents specifically? Not even that. It's actually a lot simpler. Virtually every politician makes every decision solely based on winning the next election and nothing else. And that's true for the next election and then the next election after that.

我职业生涯的前15年都在美国政府和政治体系中工作。市政府、州政府、联邦政府……你能想到的层级我基本都经历过，从各个角度观察过。而我最大的收获之一就是：为什么政治人物会做出某些决策。他们是基于自己的信仰吗？不是。是为了他们的城市、州或国家的最佳利益吗？也不是。是为了他们选民的最大利益吗？甚至也不是。其实原因简单得多——几乎所有政治人物做每一个决定，都是为了赢得下一次选举，仅此而已。这适用于下一次选举，也适用于再下一次。

And it's a problem in democracies all over the world, but it's especially pervasive in the United States because we have this corrupt practice known as gerrymandering. And what that allows the two political parties to do is divvy up all the legislative districts so that, as a result, the only election that ever really matters is the party primary.

这是全球民主制度中的普遍问题，但在美国尤其严重，因为我们有一种腐败的操作方式，叫做“选区划分操控”（gerrymandering）。这种做法让两个主要政党得以重新划分所有立法选区，结果导致唯一真正重要的选举成了党内初选。

Now we had a big election last fall. You guys might have heard something about it. And in that election, about two thirds of Americans voted. But that was for president. I live in New York City. In 2023, we had city council primaries. Turnout was 7.2 percent. So I don't know if you guys have ever been to New York, but if you have, you will know, we are not a shy people. And yet, in this city of 8.5 million highly opinionated people, you could win a council seat with just 8,000 votes. And the same thing is true in state legislative races, congressional, mayoral, you name it, and it's true everywhere.

我们在去年秋天举行了一场大型选举。你们可能听说过一些情况。在那场选举中，大约有三分之二的美国人投票了，但那是总统选举。我住在纽约市。在2023年，我们举行了市议会初选，投票率只有7.2%。我不知道你们有没有来过纽约，但如果来过，你就知道我们可不是害羞的人。可就是在这个拥有850万意见强烈市民的城市里，只需要8000票就可以赢得一个市议会席位。州议会、国会、市长选举也是一样，到处都是如此。

So who are those voters? They're typically the far right or the far left, or special interests that know how to move money and votes in low-turnout elections. They dictate not only who wins office but then what happens once they're in office. And that gets us one of two types of government. Either the chaos and dysfunction that we call Washington, DC, or totally one-sided governments, whether it's the state of Texas on the right or the city of San Francisco on the left. And if we were truly hopelessly divided, if we just couldn't agree on any issue, that'd be one thing, but we're not.

那么这些投票的人是谁？通常是极左或极右的人，或者是懂得如何在低投票率选举中操控资金和选票的特殊利益集团。他们不仅决定了谁能当选，还决定了当选者上任后会做些什么。这种状况导致我们只有两种政府：要么就是我们称之为“华盛顿特区”的混乱与瘫痪，要么就是极端一边倒的政府，比如右派主导的德克萨斯州，或左派主导的旧金山市。如果我们真的如此严重分裂，任何议题都无法达成共识，那还情有可原——但事实上并不是这样。

Most people agree on the solutions to most issues, whether it's education or health care or climate or taxes or let's take guns as an example. The vast majority of Americans would say that we should neither confiscate everyone's guns, but nor should it be easy to walk into a store and walk out with an assault rifle. But the problem is, those Americans, the people in the center, the people in the middle, they don't vote in primaries. So politicians ignore their views and cater only to the extremes. And when the next school shooting happens, and it will happen, all of us are going to bang our heads against the wall and say, Why can’t our politicians just do the right thing for once?”

大多数人在大多数议题上其实是有共识的，不论是教育、医疗、气候还是税收。就拿枪支问题来说，大多数美国人都认为，我们既不应该没收所有人的枪，也不该让人随便走进一家店就能带着突击步枪走出来。但问题在于，那些处于中间立场的人——也就是大多数人——他们并不参加初选。所以政客们无视他们的观点，只迎合极端选民。当下一起校园枪击案发生时（而它确实还会发生），我们所有人又会撞墙大喊：我们的政客为什么就不能做一次正确的事？

Why? I'll tell you why. Because they're held hostage by the extremes. They're stuck. We have to free them from their clutches. We have to make it possible for them to move back to the middle. And the only way to do that is to get a lot more people voting. And the only way to do that is to meet the people where they are: on their phones.

为什么？我来告诉你为什么。因为他们被极端派俘虏了。他们被困住了。我们必须把他们从这些人的控制中解放出来。我们必须让他们有可能回到中间立场。而实现这一点的唯一方法，就是让更多人参与投票。而要让更多人参与，唯一的办法就是在他们所在的地方找到他们：在他们的手机上。