The life expectancy of Russian men nosedived in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union.
上世纪90年代，在前苏联解体后，俄罗斯男性的预期寿命大幅下滑。
Society blamed it on the rise in vodka consumption.
社会将其归咎于伏特加消费量增加。
Mortality rates for America’s blue-collar whites have also been soaring.
美国蓝领白人的死亡率也一直在飙升。
Many pin it on the opioid epidemic.
很多人将其归因于阿片类药物的泛滥。
Both mistake symptoms for cause.
这两个例子都混淆了因果。
What Donald Trump’s electoral base shares with post-Soviet males is cratering morale.
唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的选民基础与前苏联解体后的男性的共同点在于士气低落。
Their world is vanishing.
他们的世界在消亡。
Short of inventing a time machine, there is nothing anyone can do to bring it back.
除非发明时间机器，否则谁都无法让他们的世界复原。
Whether Mr Trump loses in November his candidacy has awakened a virulent new kind of politics — the white backlash — that is not about to disappear.
特朗普的总统候选人身份唤醒了一种有毒的新型政治事态（白人抗议），不管他是否会在11月大选中落败，这种政治事态不会消失。
Pro-Trump sentiments among this group are impervious to virtually anything he says or does.
这个群体中弥漫的支持特朗普的情绪不受特朗普的任何言行影响。
Indeed the gap between the Trump voters’ contempt for the Republican establishment is only likely to be reinforced by the exodus of senior Republicans following the latest leaked Trump remarks on women.
实际上，一些共和党资深人士在特朗普针对女性的言论新近曝光后离他而去，可能只会加深支持他的选民对共和党建制派的蔑视程度。
The position of US blue-collar whites is declining both relatively and absolutely.
从相对和绝对意义来说，美国蓝领白人的地位都在下滑。
In relative terms, they are at the wrong end of America’s worst income inequality in almost a century.
从相对意义来看，在近一个世纪以来美国最严重的收入不平等中，他们恰恰处于吃亏的那一头。
This includes the ultimate inequality — how long you live.
这包括终极不平等：寿命长短。
Low income middle age men in 1970 had an average life expectancy five years below that of high income men of the same age.
1970年，美国低收入中年男性的平均预期寿命较同年龄的高收入男性短5年。
By 1990 that gap had risen to 12 years.
到1990年，这一差距扩大到12年。
The latest estimates put it at almost 15 years.
最新的估测数字为近15年。
Dying half a generation sooner than you might have is bad enough.
比你原本可能活到的岁数早死10多年已经足够糟糕了。
Expecting to die younger than your parents is worse.
预计寿命还赶不上你父母就更糟了。
It goes against what westerners in general, and Americans in particular, have taken for granted.
这违背了西方人（特别是美国人）的心理预期。
At the time of the US revolution, life expectancy was 38.
在美国独立革命时期，人们的预期寿命是38岁。
By 1920 it had risen to 57.
到1920年，这个数字延长到57岁。
It is now 78.
现在是78岁。
Silicon Valley’s wilder thinkers believe we have a shot at abolishing mortality altogether.
硅谷一些想法更大胆的人认为，我们有机会彻底消灭死亡。
But for middle-aged blue-collar males, it may now actually be falling, according to economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton.
但经济学家安妮•凯斯(Anne Case)和安格斯•迪顿(Angus Deaton)表示，美国蓝领中年男性的预期寿命实际上可能在下降。
What has brought on such un-American defeatism? Partly it is because most of the rest of the US is doing reasonably well.
是什么导致了这种毫不美国的失败主义？从一定程度上来说，这是因为美国多数其他人的境况相当不错。
Though Hispanics and African Americans are worse off as a group than whites, they start from a lower base.
尽管作为一个整体，西班牙裔美国人和非洲裔美国人的境况不如白人，但他们的起点较低。
Their longevity is creeping up slowly.
他们的寿命正缓慢攀升。
Mindset is about direction.
心态跟变化的方向有关。
This explains why non-white Americans are far less pessimistic than whites when asked about their children’s futures.
这就是为何在被问及子女的未来时，美国的非白人远没有白人悲观的原因。
Partly it is simple racial nostalgia.
从一定程度上来讲，这是一种简单的种族怀旧。
In the 1950s, which was the heyday of the American middle class, whites were still an overwhelming majority.
上世纪50年代（那个年代是美国中产阶级的鼎盛时代），白人仍占压倒性多数。
By 2042, they will be just another minority.
到2042年，他们将不过是又一个少数人群。
In the 1950s they earned a decent living from shop floor jobs.
上世纪50年代，他们从事工厂工作也能过着体面的生活。
Unless you have a college degree, or a very specific skill, those kinds of openings no longer exist.
如今，除非拥有大学学历或者非常特殊的技能，否则那样的工作是没有了。
One in six US prime age blue-collar males are now out of the labour force — a higher share than for any wealthy nation barring Italy.
如今美国六分之一的壮年男性不属于劳动力——这一比例比除意大利以外的其他所有富裕国家都高。
More than half of those are on prescription painkillers, according to Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist. Of these, two-thirds are on opioids.
普林斯顿大学(Princeton)经济学家艾伦•克鲁格(Alan Krueger)表示，在这些男性当中，逾半数服用处方止痛药，在这些人中，三分之二服用阿片类药物。
It is hard to think of a more apt metaphor for escapism than mass-consumed OxyContin.
很难想到有什么东西比大量服用奥施康定(OxyContin)更能代表对现实的逃避了。
Mr Trump owes much of his popularity with blue-collar whites to his unorthodox pledge to leave government entitlement spending alone.
特朗普在蓝领白人中广受欢迎，很大程度上要归功于他离经叛道的承诺，即不会动政府福利开支。
Most Republicans want to cut social security and raise the retirement age.
大多数共和党人希望削减社保并提高退休年龄。
This would worsen inequality.
这将加剧不平等。
If you are living shorter lives, you will draw fewer benefits after the pension age is lifted.
如果你的预期寿命较短，退休年龄提高后，你能够拿到的退休金将更少。
It would be a mistake to believe a Trump defeat would bring an end to his nativist brand of politics or to the rebellion against political correctness.
有人认为，特朗普败选将会结束他这种本土主义政治和这种对政治正确的反叛——这样想就错了。
To put it mildly, Mr Trump is an imperfect vessel for channelling such frustrations.
委婉地说，特朗普是承载此类沮丧情绪的有瑕疵的容器。
Moreover, his cure — to shut down US-led globalism in favour of Americanism — would be worse than the disease.
此外，他开出的药方——摒弃美国主导的全球主义、转而奉行美国主义——将比这个药方想要治的病更糟糕。
It would hit his base harder than any other income group.
这个药方对他的基础支持者的冲击，将比它对其他任何收入群体的冲击都更严重。
Those who shop at Walmart would suffer the biggest hits to their bottom line.
那些在沃尔玛购物的人的收入将遭受最大的冲击。
Nor would he be able to deliver on his promise to reopen coal mines and industrial factories.
他也将无法兑现自己让煤矿和工厂恢复生产的承诺。
Yet his easily enactable tax cuts would drastically worsen the inequality that helped deliver him to office.
然而，他的减税措施可以轻易实施，这些措施将极大地加剧不平等（正是这一点帮助他走到了现在）。
It is hard to predict the kind of backlash a failed Trump presidency would bring in its wake.
很难预测特朗普败选将会带来何种反弹。
But it would not be pretty.
但可以肯定的是局面不会好看。
Yet the technocratic left’s solutions hardly inspire confidence.
然而，那种技术左派的解决方案很难激发人们的信心。
As JD Vance shows in his book, Hillbilly Elegy, public assistance has as limited effect in Scots-Irish Appalachia as it does in African-American urban wastelands.
正如J•D•万斯(JD Vance)在《Hillbilly Elegy》一书中所展示的那样，公共援助对阿巴拉契亚的苏格兰-爱尔兰裔美国人和对城市废弃地上的非裔美国人一样作用有限。
It still keeps people’s heads above water — though to a lesser degree than it used to. But it does little to alter their life chances.
它仍能够帮助人们勉强过下去（尽管没有过去的帮助大），但它几乎无助于改变他们的生活机遇。
Better training and infrastructure are certainly needed.
为他们提供更好的培训和基础设施显然是必要的。
Non-Trumpian conservatives also have a point: poor white America is trapped in a culture that rejects self-help, disdains education and is prone to family break-up.
非特朗普阵营的保守派人士也有些在理：美国白人穷人受困于一种文化，这种文化拒绝自我帮助、蔑视教育、容易出现家庭破裂。
President Barack Obama has criticised African-American communities for stigmatising diligent students as acting white.
美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)抨击非裔美国人社区将勤奋学生污蔑为装白人。
Vance points to a similar mindset in Scots-Irish America, where the studious are ostracised as gay.
万斯指出，在苏格兰-爱尔兰裔美国人当中也有类似想法——那些用功的学生被认为是同性恋、因而遭到排斥。
What kind of programme could fix this? If America were Singapore, it would shift people into mixed-income communities.
什么样的计划可以纠正这种状况？如果美国是新加坡，它会将人们转移到收入有高有低的社区里。
The closer your proximity to higher achieving groups, the greater your chance of moving up.
你越接近拥有更高成就的群体，你向上流动的机会就越大。
But America is a democracy.
但美国是一个民主国家。
Social engineering is tyranny.
社会工程是专制做法。
On the plus side, US liberty is for keeps.
从积极的方面来说，美国自由得以永存。
On the downside, society’s losers are plentiful enough to disrupt US politics for a long time to come.
从消极的方面来说，美国社会中的大量输家足以在未来很长一段时间内扰乱美国政治。
Trump’s America will long outlast its repugnant champion.
特朗普的美国将比它令人反感的鼓吹者长寿得多。