Canvassing | Nikil Saval
It starts with missed calls from unknown area codes.
它从未知区号的未接来电开始。
Text messages: Hey Nikil!
短信：嘿尼基尔！
Are you FEELING THE BERN as much as I am?
你和我一样感受伯尔尼吗？
There’s a new office in South Philadelphia, and a Political Revolution training going on this Saturday.
南费城有一个新办公室，本周六将举行政治革命培训。
Can you make it?
你能做到吗？
For weeks, I haven’t been able to make it.
几个星期以来，我一直没能做到。
I’ve gone to the website, indicated my willingness to volunteer, emailed the local organizer to explain my background in labor organizing and why this ought to qualify me for a good volunteer position — but there are n+1 pieces to edit, plus a work trip to California that I’ve extended into a visit to my in-laws.
我访问了该网站，表明了我志愿服务的意愿，给当地组织者发了电子邮件，解释了我在劳工组织方面的背景，以及为什么这应该使我有资格获得一个好的志愿者职位——但有 n+1 篇文章需要编辑，再加上一次去加利福尼亚的工作旅行，我已经将其延长为拜访我的姻亲。
By the pool at their house, which fronts a golf course whose sprinklers turn on every ten minutes during the worst drought in California history, the calls and messages fill me with guilt.
他们家的游泳池正对着一个高尔夫球场，在加州历史上最严重的干旱期间，高尔夫球场的喷水装置每十分钟就会打开一次，电话和短信让我充满了愧疚。
I recall the times in fall 2011, during the occupation of Philadelphia’s City Hall, when I’d do something frivolous, like browse in a bookstore, and be overcome by the shame that attaches to any private activity undertaken in a moment of public upheaval.
我记得 2011 年秋天，费城市政厅被占领期间，我会做一些无聊的事情，比如去书店逛逛，然后就会因在公共动乱时刻进行的任何私人活动而感到羞愧。
Or worse, the feeling that intellectual work, even in the service of politics, is useless — that the only thing to do is to give yourself over entirely to the cause.
或者更糟糕的是，人们感觉智力工作，即使是为政治服务，也是无用的——唯一能做的就是把自己完全奉献给这项事业。
When Sanders announced his candidacy, I thought it was fun, a lark, a social democratic road bump for the cavalcade leading to the inevitable Clinton coronation.
当桑德斯宣布参选时，我认为这很有趣，是一种乐趣，是社会民主主义道路上的一个障碍，为通往不可避免的克林顿加冕的队伍提供了障碍。
Then came the rallies, the speeches about democratic socialism , the debates in which he hectored opponents and declared the country in crisis.
接下来是集会、有关民主社会主义的演讲以及他威吓对手并宣布国家陷入危机的辩论。
I spent some time looking at the left-wing debates online: It’s better for the left to organize outside the campaign than fall into the sickly embrace of the Democratic Party.
我花了一些时间在网上查看左翼辩论：左翼在竞选之外组织起来比落入民主党病态的怀抱要好。
It’s better for the left to use the campaign as a platform for getting its ideas out there.
对于左派来说，最好利用竞选活动作为表达其想法的平台。
Electoral politics won’t solve anything.
选举政治解决不了任何问题。
Electoral politics shouldn’t be ceded to the neoliberals and the far right.
选举政治不应让位于新自由主义者和极右翼。
The endless rehearsals of strategy, the sense that every moment is a fork in the road, every decision critical and indelible — I could go back to 1972 and find the same arguments.
无休止的战略演练，每一刻都是岔路口的感觉，每一个决定都至关重要且不可磨灭——我可以回到 1972 年，找到同样的论点。
No wonder everyone gets burned out: a century spent going over the same ground, trashing one another along the way.
难怪每个人都会精疲力竭：一个世纪以来，我们都在同一片土地上行走，一路上互相蹂躏。
Why is the question facing the left always, Is it good for the left?
为什么左派总是面临这样的问题：这对左派有利吗？
What about everyone else?
其他人呢？
At afternoon drinks at Melvyn’s with the in-laws, Trump’s name comes up, and before anyone utters the usual imprecations and prayers, I find myself declaiming that the focus on Trump is misguided — that every Republican candidate seeks to destroy Muslims, and for all the outrage over Ted Cruz’s proposal to surveil Muslim communities in the wake of the Brussels attacks, even Obama surveils Muslim communities.
下午和姻亲们在梅尔文酒吧喝酒时，特朗普的名字出现了，在任何人发出通常的咒骂和祈祷之前，我发现自己宣称对特朗普的关注是错误的——每一位共和党候选人都试图摧毁穆斯林，尽管特德·克鲁兹在布鲁塞尔袭击事件后提出监视穆斯林社区的提议引起了人们的愤怒，甚至奥巴马也监视了穆斯林社区。
In fact, the candidate most likely to take the country to war is Hillary Clinton, and America’s endless war has always been against anyone with the slightest tincture of melanin, amirite?!
事实上，最有可能将国家带入战争的候选人是希拉里·克林顿，而美国无休止的战争从来都是针对任何有丝毫黑色素酊剂的人，阿米里特？！
The bartender turns, everyone at the bar turns.
调酒师转身，酒吧里的每个人都转身。
Everyone is white, their whiteness suddenly startles me — their skin seems drained, sapped.
每个人都是白人，他们的白人突然让我大吃一惊——他们的皮肤似乎枯竭了，筋疲力尽了。
I’ve fomented an embarrassed silence.
我引发了尴尬的沉默。
My father-in-law, drawing in his breath, waits out a beat.
我的岳父屏住呼吸，等待片刻。
“I think .
“我认为 。
.
。
.” he says.
。”他说。
“I think that’s a little extreme.”
“我认为这有点极端。”
Extremism in the defense of liberty , et cetera!
捍卫自由的极端主义等等！
But my nervous energy has gotten me nowhere and might be better suited to action.
但我的紧张能量让我一事无成，可能更适合采取行动。
I spend the rest of the afternoon embarrassed.
整个下午我都在尴尬中度过。
Later in the day I return one of the calls — the Bernie volunteer seems momentarily surprised — and sign up for a canvassing shift.
当天晚些时候，我回了一个电话——伯尼的志愿者似乎暂时感到惊讶——并报名参加拉票轮班。
The day of my first canvass shift is cold and clouded over, with a chance of rain and possibly snow.
我第一个拉票班的那天天气寒冷，多云，有可能下雨，也可能下雪。
I make an extra pot of coffee to compensate for the dread and the instinctive desire to lie down that confronts me every time I undertake some modicum of real political activity.
我会多泡一壶咖啡，以弥补每次进行一些真正的政治活动时所面临的恐惧和本能的躺下的欲望。
I think of a line from Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend : “And yet — like us all, when we swoon — like us all, every day of our lives when we wake — he is instinctively unwilling to be restored to the consciousness of this existence, and would be left dormant, if he could.”
我想起了狄更斯《我们共同的朋友》中的一句话：“然而，就像我们所有人一样，当我们昏倒时——就像我们所有人一样，在我们生命中的每一天醒来时——他本能地不愿意恢复这种存在的意识，如果可以的话，他会保持休眠状态。”
“I like Bernie,” he says.
“我喜欢伯尼，”他说。
“Trump’s just in it for laughs.
“特朗普只是为了搞笑。
I don’t think I’m going to vote.”
我想我不会投票。”
I walk down Passyunk, past the endless row of restaurants advertising their strong Inquirer reviews.
我沿着帕辛克大街走去，经过一排排广告着《询问报》强烈好评的餐馆。
(Philadelphia’s “rebirth” is chiefly measured in new restaurants; the urban renaissance will come nestled in a warm kohlrabi puree.) Not a single bookstore, but many vintage furniture stores, a vintage scooter store, a vintage bike-bag store.
（费城的“重生”主要通过新餐厅来衡量；城市的复兴将在温暖的大头菜泥中实现。）不是一家书店，而是许多古董家具店、古董踏板车商店、古董自行车包商店。
The office possesses the usual provisional atmosphere of campaign offices: posters, pamphlets, picnic tables, images of Bernie’s glasses and halo of white hair everywhere among the pizza boxes.
办公室拥有竞选办公室通常的临时氛围：海报、小册子、野餐桌、伯尼眼镜的图像以及披萨盒中随处可见的白发光环。
A whiteboard asks why YOU support Bernie.
白板询问您为什么支持伯尼。
“Because he’s for WORKING PEOPLE,” et cetera.
“因为他是为劳动人民服务的，”等等。
The office is also empty.
办公室也空无一人。
There’s just one extremely young woman there, who’s taken off a semester from college in Chicago to work for the campaign.
那里只有一位非常年轻的女性，她从芝加哥大学休了一个学期来为竞选工作。
I tell her I’ve come to canvass, and that I’ve done it before — a long time ago, for Obama.
我告诉她我是来拉票的，而且我以前就做过这样的事——很久以前，是为奥巴马拉票的。
She quickly retrains me: Remember to ring the doorbell and also knock, sometimes the bell doesn’t work, try knocking twice; if they don’t know who they’re voting for, try to persuade them; if they’re voting for Hillary, leave them alone (that’s between them and their rotten, cynical conscience, she neglects to add); here’s the list of Sanders’s policies ($15 minimum wage, single-payer health insurance, free higher public education, antifracking, all of it true but not to the point — the point is he’s the first candidate in two generations who is not a neoliberal, the first in decades to call himself a socialist, running as a Democrat but, bless him, not one).
她赶紧重新训练我：记得按门铃，也敲门，有时门铃不响，试试敲两下；如果他们不知道自己投票给谁，请尝试说服他们；如果他们投票给希拉里，就别打扰他们（她没有补充说，这是他们和他们腐烂、愤世嫉俗的良心之间的事）；这是桑德斯的政策清单（15美元的最低工资、单一付款人医疗保险、免费高等教育、反水力压裂，所有这些都是事实，但不是重点——关键是他是两代人中第一位不是新自由主义者的候选人，也是几十年来第一位自称社会主义者、以民主党身份参选的人，但祝福他，不是一个）。
In the moment, I have trouble recalling why I canvassed for Obama, or what I said in his favor.
此刻，我很难回忆起我为什么为奥巴马拉票，或者我说过哪些对他有利的话。
The virtue of the Sanders platform is that I have no trouble articulating what he believes, because much of what he believes, I believe.
桑德斯平台的优点在于，我可以毫不费力地阐明他的信念，因为他所相信的大部分内容，我都相信。
I can say what I think, for the most part, and it comes out sounding like what Sanders thinks.
在很大程度上，我可以说出我的想法，而且听起来就像桑德斯的想法。
It occurs to me that I have never felt this way about national electoral politics in my life.
我突然意识到，我一生中从未对国家选举政治有过这样的感受。
The list of voters she gives me is in deep South Philly, south of Snyder, west of Broad.
她给我的选民名单位于费城南部深处，斯奈德以南，布罗德以西。
Dense, hermetic stretches of row-house monotony, where the names largely still rhyme with Yahtzee, Nietzsche.
密集、封闭的排屋单调，这里的名字基本上仍然与《Yahtzee》、《尼采》押韵。
On Saturday afternoon I encounter empty houses, places where people don’t answer the door.
周六下午，我遇到空荡荡的房子，人们不开门。
Nine out of ten times I’m left standing outside, scratching the “Not Home” box with cracked hands, bits of falling ice smudging my marks.
十有八九我都站在外面，用干裂的手刮擦“不在家”的盒子，掉落的冰块弄脏了我的痕迹。
Some addresses are impossible to find, and in many places the doorbells don’t work.
有些地址根本找不到，而且很多地方门铃不起作用。
There was a time when these campaigns must have been easier to manage, I think: when people picked up the phone as a matter of course.
我认为，曾经有一段时间，当人们理所当然地拿起电话时，这些活动一定更容易管理。
When regular mail delivery and frequent house visitors meant that having an easily locatable front door and a working doorbell were necessary.
当定期邮件递送和频繁的房屋访客意味着有一个易于定位的前门和一个可用的门铃是必要的。
As I walk down one block, a woman not elderly but aged by dire circumstances sucks from a limp cigarette and asks if I’m working for Bernie.
当我沿着一个街区走下去时，一位女士年纪并不大，但因环境恶劣而变老，她吸着一支软烟，问我是否在为伯尼工作。
I tell her I’m a volunteer, and she asks, her open mouth revealing a stretch of missing teeth, whether Bernie will help.
我告诉她我是一名志愿者，她张开嘴，露出一截缺失的牙齿，问伯尼是否愿意帮忙。
I tell her that he’s for working people, that he’ll raise the minimum wage.
我告诉她，他是为了劳动人民，他会提高最低工资。
“No,” she says, “I need a different kind of help.” She tells me she despises Clinton.
“不，”她说，“我需要不同类型的帮助。”她告诉我她鄙视克林顿。
“I don’t think a woman can be President.” Gently I suggest that I don’t think this is true, but she demurs.
“我不认为女性可以当总统。”我温和地表示我认为这不是真的，但她表示反对。
At other doors, I find the fathers of the voters I’m looking for.
在其他门口，我找到了我要找的选民的父亲。
“She’s not home.
“她不在家。
The rest of us are voting for Trump,” one says, “but I hope Bernie wins.
我们其他人都投票给特朗普，”一位人士说道，“但我希望伯尼获胜。
I can’t stand Clinton.” There’s something uncanny about facing a Trump voter, someone who presumably wants me expelled from the country, or simply killed by the National Guard, but who nonetheless is the picture of gruff politesse.
我受不了克林顿。”面对特朗普的选民有一种不可思议的感觉，他可能希望我被驱逐出境，或者干脆被国民警卫队杀死，但他仍然表现出粗鲁的礼貌。
Or maybe they’re just friendly nonracists who vote Republican.
或者也许他们只是友好的非种族主义者，投票给共和党。
I do encounter one genuine racist, whose inner door stands open to the elements as I approach the house.
我确实遇到了一位真正的种族主义者，当我走近房子时，他的内门向着各种元素敞开着。
Through the screen door I can see his knees and legs.
透过纱门我可以看到他的膝盖和腿。
When I knock he rises slowly, and when he sees me he rushes to the door, swings it open, jabs at the pin I’m wearing.
当我敲门时，他慢慢站起来，当他看到我时，他冲到门前，把门打开，戳我身上的别针。
A 75-year-old toothless Italian American with a buzz cut, he sputters, “Vote .
一位 75 岁、没有牙齿、留着寸头的意大利裔美国人结结巴巴地说：“投票……”
.
。
.
。
for him !
为了他！
Not in a million years.
一百万年内不会。
I’d sooner vote for — for,” then he spits it out, “ Sharpton.” Spent, he lets the door shut.
我宁愿投票赞成——赞成，”然后他脱口而出，“夏普顿。”他筋疲力尽，关上了门。
“Now beat it.
“现在打败它。
Scram.” I obey.
滚吧。”我服从。
Another door, vinyl siding: a white woman with several kids racing in and out of the doorway gives me her time.
另一扇门，乙烯基壁板：一位白人妇女带着几个孩子在门口跑进跑出，给了我时间。
She knows vaguely about the upcoming election, but not who Bernie Sanders is.
她隐约知道即将到来的选举，但不知道伯尼·桑德斯是谁。
“There’s Trump, but he’s just for rich people, right?” He is, I say, but so is Hillary Clinton.
“有特朗普，但他只适合有钱人，对吧？”我说他是，但希拉里·克林顿也是。
I tell her about the speeches to Wall Street, with their significant honoraria, and she raises her eyebrows.
我向她讲述了在华尔街的演讲及其巨额酬金，她扬起了眉毛。
I tell her Sanders is for working people like us, and she seems to believe me (though “us” is a questionable concept in this context).
我告诉她桑德斯是为像我们这样的劳动人民准备的，她似乎相信我（尽管“我们”在这种情况下是一个值得怀疑的概念）。
I leave some “literature.” My last few blocks, I hit a stretch of enthusiastic Sanders supporters: a black woman who has her child tell me the good news, a white woman who actually worked for Sanders in Vermont.
我留下一些“文献”。在我的最后几个街区，我遇到了一群热情的桑德斯支持者：一位带着孩子的黑人妇女告诉我这个好消息，一位实际上在佛蒙特州为桑德斯工作的白人妇女。
One Clinton supporter, the lone professional male in a working-class neighborhood, seems quietly aggrieved by his own choice, mentioning it in a tone of either shame or resignation.
克林顿的一位支持者，工人阶级社区中唯一的职业男性，似乎对自己的选择暗暗感到委屈，以羞愧或无奈的语气提到这一点。
When I try to find the door to an apartment above a bodega, a young man in a nearby car asks with palpable suspicion what I’m up to.
当我试图找到一家杂货店上方公寓的门时，附近一辆汽车里的一个年轻人明显怀疑地问我在做什么。
He relaxes once I explain.
我一解释他就放松了。
“I like Bernie,” he says.
“我喜欢伯尼，”他说。
“Trump’s just in it for laughs.
“特朗普只是为了搞笑。
I don’t think I’m going to vote.
我想我不会投票。
Politicians can’t do anything.
政治家无能为力。
The whole system’s rigged anyway.”
无论如何，整个系统都被操纵了。”
The first sunny day of the year , I get a neighborhood of “turf” (as the campaign calls it) closer to downtown — closer, specifically, to the Whole Foods — and the results speak for themselves.
一年中第一个阳光明媚的日子，我得到了一个靠近市中心的“地皮”（正如竞选活动所称的）社区——特别是靠近全食超市——结果不言而喻。
Door after door, Clinton, Clinton, Clinton.
门又门，克林顿，克林顿，克林顿。
“I haven’t decided yet, but I’m leaning toward Hillary Clinton.” Do you want to discuss why?
“我还没有决定，但我倾向于希拉里·克林顿。”你想讨论一下为什么吗？
No , as the door slams in my face.
不，门在我面前砰地关上。
Still, most of the houses are empty, or people don’t answer the door — somewhere around 80 percent.
尽管如此，大多数房屋还是空着，或者人们不开门——大约占 80%。
In between stretches of unanswered doors, one comes across the full spectrum of weird American habits.
在一扇扇无人应答的门之间，人们会遇到各种各样奇怪的美国人习惯。
At 4 PM : “I’m sorry, we’re having dinner.” Wha?
下午 4 点：“抱歉，我们正在吃晚饭。”世界卫生大会？
I should have noted how many times I rang the bell, loud barking ensued, and the resident cracked open the door, motioned down at her excited dog, and lifted both arms in a “What can I do?” gesture before shutting the door.
我应该记下有多少次我按了门铃，随之而来的是大声的吠叫，居民打开门，向下示意她兴奋的狗，并举起双臂，“我能做什么？”关门前的手势。
Something truly shameful about using the dog as your excuse.
用狗作为借口确实是可耻的。
“If you ask me they have no business living amongst us!” as Newman said on Seinfeld .
“如果你问我的话，他们没有资格住在我们中间！”正如纽曼在《宋飞正传》中所说的那样。
At Fitzwater and 9th, the throbbing heart of upper-middle-class row-house Philadelphia, a late-middle-aged woman with closely cropped hair, unfashionable wire-rimmed glasses, and an overall demeanor of skepticism and practiced condescension emerges at the sound of my knocking and engages me in endless street conversation.
在费城中上层阶级排屋的菲茨沃特街和第九街，一位中年妇女在我的敲门声中出现，她留着短发，戴着不合时宜的金丝框眼镜，整体上表现出怀疑的态度和熟练的居高临下的态度，并与我进行了无休止的街头谈话。
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know,” she says, raising her hands questioningly before dramatically shoving them in her jeans pockets.
“说实话，我不知道，”她疑惑地举起双手，然后戏剧性地把它们塞进牛仔裤口袋里。
“This week, it got ugly.
“这周，情况变得很糟糕。
Sanders showed his grumpy side.”
桑德斯展现了他脾气暴躁的一面。”
What had happened?
发生了什么事？
Clips of Sanders’s discussion with the New York Daily News about the banks were released, and led to some hubbub about whether his plans for financial regulation were lucid.
桑德斯与《纽约每日新闻》讨论银行的片段被发布，引发了人们对他的金融监管计划是否清晰的争论。
Clinton questioned whether Sanders had done “his homework.” Sanders said, I’m not qualified?
克林顿质疑桑德斯是否做了“功课”。桑德斯说，我没有资格？
She’s not qualified, followed by indecorous comments about Clinton’s support of NAFTA and the war in Iraq.
她没有资格，接着又发表了关于克林顿支持北美自由贸易协定和伊拉克战争的不雅言论。
A vapor cloud of horror wafted out from the Clinton camp, how dare he , et cetera.
克林顿阵营中飘出一股恐怖的雾气，他怎么敢，等等。
I barely followed it — the more I hit the streets, the less I follow the news.
我几乎没有关注它——我走上街头的次数越多，我就越不关注新闻。
I find it unbearable, beside the point, to listen to the debates, even to Sanders himself.
我觉得听这些辩论，甚至是桑德斯本人的辩论，偏离主题是令人难以忍受的。
My rough sense is that Sanders was responding to a Washington Post headline — “Clinton Questions Whether Sanders Is Qualified to Be President” — rather than to anything she actually said, and I say so.
我的粗略感觉是，桑德斯是在回应《华盛顿邮报》的标题——“克林顿质疑桑德斯是否有资格担任总统”——而不是她实际上所说的任何内容，而我是这么说的。
But for this voter, it’s a sign of terrible things to come.
但对于这位选民来说，这是可怕的事情即将发生的征兆。
“I’m worried that you millennials won’t vote in the fall if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination.
“我担心如果桑德斯没有获得提名，你们千禧一代就不会在秋天投票。
Don’t you realize that the key thing is to defeat the Republicans?” This is another headline she’s quoting.
你难道没有意识到关键是击败共和党吗？”这是她引用的另一个标题。
It’s amazing, in fact, how often I find that news headlines simply migrate, verbatim and unprocessed, into people’s minds and out their mouths; how often I hear people say, “No matter what happens we’ll need to unify the party ,” as if they were Democratic Party strategists.
事实上，令人惊讶的是，我经常发现新闻标题只是一字不差地、未经处理地进入人们的头脑并从他们的嘴里消失；这就是事实。我经常听到人们说，“无论发生什么，我们都需要团结党”，就好像他们是民主党的战略家一样。
I reassure her that “we millennials” understand the nature of the threat from Trump and the rest of the gang, even though I vow to other Sanders supporters that I’ll cast my vote for Jill Stein, should it come to that.
我向她保证，“我们千禧一代”了解特朗普和其他帮派成员威胁的本质，尽管我向其他桑德斯支持者发誓，如果事情真的发生，我会投票给吉尔·斯坦。
She voices skepticism about whether Sanders could win a general election (painful memories of the McGovern candidacy), points out that her wife is a staunch Clintonoid and wouldn’t even let me in the door.
她对桑德斯能否赢得大选表示怀疑（麦戈文候选资格的痛苦回忆），并指出她的妻子是坚定的克林顿式的人，甚至不让我进门。
After nearly twenty minutes, she concedes, “Look, I’m going to vote for him.”
近二十分钟后，她承认，“听着，我要投票给他。”
This conversation feels like a victory and inaugurates a string of houses — closer now to South Philadelphia — where nearly everyone is voting for Sanders.
这次谈话感觉像是一场胜利，并为一系列房屋揭幕——现在距离南费城更近了——几乎每个人都投票给桑德斯。
People seem to enjoy keeping me in suspense.
人们似乎喜欢让我保持悬念。
“Can I ask if you plan to vote on April 26th in the Democratic primary?” “Yes, you can.” “Uh.
“请问您是否计划在 4 月 26 日的民主党初选中投票？” “是的，你可以。” “呃。
Are you planning to vote on April 26th in the Democratic primary?” “Yes, I am.” “Right.
您打算在 4 月 26 日的民主党初选中投票吗？” “我是。” ” “对了。
Can I ask who you’re voting for?” “Yes, you can.” “OK.
我能问一下你投票给谁吗？” “是的，你可以。” “好吧。”
Who are you voting for?” “BERNIE SANDERS!!!” They shake my hand and send me on my way.
你投票给谁？” “伯尼·桑德斯！！！”他们与我握手并送我上路。
I mark box after box: “Strong Sanders.”
我在一个又一个的方框上标记：“坚强的桑德斯。”
It seems implausible, entire blocks voting for this weirdo.
整个街区都投票给这个怪人，这似乎难以置信。
I can barely believe it, and it occurs to me that I’ve been thinking of my support for Sanders as a private obsession, a strange fascination unconnected to the preferences and actions of most people.
我简直不敢相信，我突然意识到，我一直认为我对桑德斯的支持是一种私人的痴迷，一种与大多数人的偏好和行为无关的奇怪的迷恋。
Even the millions of votes cast for him so far seem spectral to me, mere data, unrelated to everyday life.
即使是迄今为止投给他的数百万张选票对我来说也显得很幽灵，仅仅是数据，与日常生活无关。
Yet here were strangers who seemed to believe more or less the same insane things I believe, things I usually have trouble uttering, let alone defending, in polite company.
然而，这里的陌生人似乎或多或少地相信我所相信的同样疯狂的事情，这些事情我通常很难在礼貌的陪伴下说出，更不用说辩护了。
The high this gives me is inspiring, and for the first time I begin to fantasize, blithely, about what it would be like for Bernie Sanders, self-described democratic socialist, to become President.
这给我带来的兴奋是鼓舞人心的，我第一次开始愉快地幻想自称民主社会主义者的伯尼·桑德斯成为总统会是什么样子。
Jeff, one of the two lead organizers of the South Philadelphia office, is tall, thin, and stooped; he looks crescent-shaped when standing.
杰夫是南费城办事处的两位主要组织者之一，他又高又瘦，驼背。他站立时看起来呈新月形。
1 Just 22 years old, he has the manner of a desperately shy child much younger.
1 年仅 22 岁的他，有着一种非常害羞的小孩子的风格。
He wants to meet to talk about what drew me to the campaign.
他想会面谈谈是什么吸引我参加竞选。
I fear another of those inevitable organizing conversations, the “story of self,” in which you’re compelled to provide psychological explanations for your political choices.
我担心另一种不可避免的组织对话，即“自我的故事”，在这种对话中，你被迫为你的政治选择提供心理解释。
Yes, the personal is political, but it isn’t only the personal that is political.
是的，个人就是政治，但不仅仅是个人才是政治。
At UNITE HERE, the union I spent several years volunteering for, my lead organizers explained how years of poor childhood health or an early growth spurt that left them uncomfortably tall gave them a propensity to feel ill at ease and, consequently, to fight for justice.
在我花了几年时间志愿服务的工会“UNITE HERE”中，我的主要组织者解释了多年来不良的童年健康状况或早期的生长突增导致他们长得不舒服，使他们倾向于感到不安，从而为正义而战。
(But why this fight?
（但是为什么要打架呢？
Why this form of action?
为什么采取这种形式的行动？
There was always an intellectual leap.) I could never provide the same explanations.
总是有智力上的飞跃。）我永远无法提供相同的解释。
It wasn’t that I hadn’t suffered deprivations, but I didn’t see those deprivations as the primary sources of what I believed.
这并不是说我没有遭受过剥夺，但我并不认为这些剥夺是我信仰的主要来源。
And yet failing to divulge painful secrets made for a very one-sided conversation.
然而，未能透露痛苦的秘密却导致了一场非常片面的对话。
It was like failing to rise to the demands of union fraternity: your brother loosed his rich, thick blood and held his wrist to yours, only to watch you pull away.
这就像没能满足工会兄弟会的要求：你的兄弟释放了他丰富而厚重的血液，将他的手腕握在你的手腕上，只是看着你离开。
To shirk duty was to invite recrimination.
逃避责任就会招致相互指责。
“I’m sorry,” he would tell his comrades, “it is Sunday evening.
“对不起，”他告诉他的战友，“今天是周日晚上。
Thrones is on.
《权力的游戏》已上线。
Winter is coming.”
冬天来了。”
And so there were subsequent conversations, less forthcoming and more punitive: you were not committed, you lacked the gumption and will to carry the fight to the end.
于是，接下来的对话就不再那么直接，而是更具惩罚性：你没有忠诚，你缺乏将战斗进行到底的进取心和意愿。
Once I declined to attend a union organizing retreat so I could work on my book, and my lead told me, “Well, you can spend time observing the fight, like a journalist, or you can actually be part of it.” I went on the retreat.
有一次，我拒绝参加工会组织的静修会，这样我就可以写书了，我的领导告诉我，“好吧，你可以花时间像记者一样观察这场斗争，或者你实际上可以成为其中的一部分。”我继续静修。
Another time, when I missed an all-hands meeting so I could represent n+1 at, of all things, Left Forum, I was told, “You can’t flit in and out of the movement.
还有一次，当我错过了一次全体会议，以便我可以在左翼论坛上代表 n+1 时，我被告知，“你不能快速进出运动。
People aren’t going to trust you.” A friend of mine in the union was practiced at rebuffing these requests to give up his life.
人们不会相信你。”我的一位工会朋友习惯于拒绝这些放弃生命的请求。
“I’m sorry,” he would tell his comrades, “it is Sunday evening, and I am not going anywhere.
“对不起，”他告诉他的战友，“今天是周日晚上，我哪儿也不去。
Thrones is on.
《权力的游戏》已上线。
Winter is coming.”
冬天来了。”
After I quit volunteering for the union, I found myself spending afternoons weeping through TV screenings of Norma Rae .
在我退出工会志愿服务后，我发现自己整个下午都在电视上观看《诺玛·雷》的放映而哭泣。
I missed the commitments I had spent years building.
我错过了我花了多年时间做出的承诺。
To stand up in the textile factory, to raise the ragged placard with the word UNION on it.
站在纺织厂里，举起写着“工会”字样的破旧标语牌。
To stand up to everyone around you.
勇敢地面对周围的每个人。
To spend nights and weekends in a kind of exhausted frenzy, making hundreds of phone calls, digging deep into the news archives for a bit of telling data that would help you screw the bosses, driving to one home after another, one workplace after another, pleading with workers, pleading with everyone you knew but, in truth, with yourself, that there was nothing more important, that your work, that laundry and cooking, would all have to wait for this higher cause .
在一种疲惫不堪的疯狂中度过夜晚和周末，打数百个电话，深入挖掘新闻档案，寻找一些能帮助你搞砸老板的有说服力的数据，开车到一个又一个家庭，一个又一个工作场所，恳求工人们，恳求你认识的每个人，但事实上，恳求你自己，没有什么比你的工作、洗衣和做饭更重要的了，都必须等待这个更高的事业。
.
。
.
。
was there anything greater?
还有什么更伟大的事吗？
I missed it like a limb.
我像失去肢体一样想念它。
Jeff and I meet at the office around nine in the morning.
杰夫和我早上九点左右在办公室见面。
He and three other organizers are silent, barely awake, craning into the glow of their laptops.
他和其他三名组织者保持沉默，几乎没有醒来，伸长脖子看着笔记本电脑的光芒。
We walk to a café down the street; Jeff confesses that he has gone nowhere in the city besides the office and the house he’s staying in.
我们步行到街上的一家咖啡馆；杰夫承认，除了办公室和住的房子外，他在城里没有去过任何地方。
He tells me his salary amounts to about $24,000 a year — manageable, in Philadelphia — with free housing, and he lets me pay for his coffee, and for the toast and jam he orders.
他告诉我，他的年薪约为 24,000 美元——在费城还算可以承受——还有免费住房，他让我付他的咖啡费、他点的吐司和果酱的费。
Then it begins.
然后就开始了。
Jeff grew up in upstate New York, awkward and weird, in circumstances that were financially uneasy if not grindingly bad.
杰夫在纽约州北部长大，他的处境尴尬而奇怪，经济上即使不是极其糟糕，也很不稳定。
This instilled in him an instinct to fight for those who also felt “left out.” He wanted to be a writer, but once he realized he’d leave the University of Chicago with a pile of loans, he got into organizing.
这给他灌输了一种本能，为那些同样感到“被忽视”的人而战。他想成为一名作家，但当他意识到自己将带着一大笔贷款离开芝加哥大学时，他开始从事组织工作。
Writing fell by the wayside; it no longer meant what it did.
写作半途而废；它不再意味着它所做的事情。
Sanders’s position on student debt persuaded him to apply for a job with the campaign.
桑德斯在学生债务问题上的立场说服他申请竞选工作。
And myself?
我自己呢？
I give the only story I know to be true.
我给出的是我所知道的唯一真实的故事。
That I grew up a weak liberal, largely unconcerned with politics and more concerned that chain bookstores were displacing my beloved independents.
我从小就是一个软弱的自由主义者，基本上不关心政治，更担心连锁书店正在取代我心爱的独立书店。
In college I watched from my dormitory as Yamasaki’s twin towers, which I had loathed for architectural reasons, fell, and I only became incensed by the war in Afghanistan and Iraq over time.
在大学里，我在宿舍里看着我因建筑原因而厌恶的山崎双子塔倒塌，随着时间的推移，我只是对阿富汗和伊拉克战争感到愤怒。
I got a job in publishing and, unhappy with the working conditions, tried and failed to organize a union.
我找到了一份出版业的工作，对工作条件不满意，尝试组织工会，但失败了。
At n+1 , writing about the Atlantic Yards project got me interested in political theory beyond Adorno and Žižek.
在 n+1 上，撰写有关大西洋码头项目的文章让我对阿多诺和齐泽克以外的政治理论产生了兴趣。
While in graduate school in California, I began, for reasons that escaped me, to subscribe to Labor Notes .
在加州读研究生时，我开始订阅《劳工笔记》，但具体原因我不清楚。
I attended panel discussions about the now-arcane fight between SEIU and UNITE HERE in 2009, and found myself impressed by the UNITE HERE crew.
2009 年，我参加了有关 SEIU 和 UNITE HERE 之间现已神秘的斗争的小组讨论，发现 UNITE HERE 的工作人员给我留下了深刻的印象。
I became a regular volunteer until 2013, when I burned out.
我成为一名常规志愿者，直到 2013 年我精疲力竭。
I wanted to get back into politics, and though no longer a Democrat, I found Sanders to be a candidate who held many good positions.
我想重返政坛，虽然不再是民主党人，但我发现桑德斯是一位担任过许多好职位的候选人。
I strongly disliked the Clintons, Bill more than Hillary, and was tired of their stranglehold over Democratic politics.
我非常不喜欢克林顿夫妇，尤其是比尔，而不是希拉里，并且厌倦了他们对民主政治的束缚。
Jeff stares at me mutely the whole time — only stopping me to note that he was 13 or 14 when Obama was first elected — and by the end he doesn’t quite respond.
杰夫一直默默地盯着我——只是让我注意到奥巴马第一次当选时他只有 13 岁或 14 岁——到最后他并没有做出回应。
Even I recognize something dissatisfying about the story.
就连我也意识到这个故事有一些令人不满意的地方。
There is perhaps some part of me that is unwilling to give up the real goods, but in truth I don’t even know what they are.
也许我心里有一部分不愿意放弃真正的东西，但事实上我什至不知道它们是什么。
All I know is that when Jeff says that he can’t write anymore, that organizing has taken over everything, there is something in me that responds.
我所知道的是，当杰夫说他不能再写了，组织已经接管了一切，我内心有某种东西做出了回应。
The Sanders people need a “campaign hub” in my neighborhood for the weekend before the primary, and there are no houses or empty offices available.
桑德斯的人需要在初选前的周末在我家附近建立一个“竞选中心”，但没有可用的房屋或空办公室。
Cautiously I suggest Jeff take a look at my house, a cramped two-and-a-half-story row house that my wife, Shannon, and I rent.
我小心翼翼地建议杰夫看看我的房子，那是我和妻子香农租的一栋狭窄的两层半联排别墅。
He comes over and immediately judges it to be fine.
他走过来，立刻判断没问题。
He reminds me that this means hosting volunteers from roughly eight in the morning until nine at night; the day of the actual election, it means starting at seven and working until the polls close, at eight.
他提醒我，这意味着从早上八点到晚上九点左右都要接待志愿者；在实际选举的当天，这意味着七点开始工作，直到八点投票结束。
I would have to train canvassers, another volunteer would enter data from returning canvass packets, another would report totals to the main campaign office in North Philadelphia.
我必须培训拉票员，另一名志愿者将从返回的拉票包中输入数据，另一名志愿者将向北费城的主要竞选办公室报告总数。
I agree to do it.
我同意这样做。
I get trained in a computer program called Voter Activation Network, or VAN, an extraordinary compendium of voter information and campaign planning software chiefly developed by Obama data nerds.
我接受了名为“选民激活网络”（VAN）的计算机程序的培训，这是一个主要由奥巴马数据迷开发的选民信息和竞选规划软件的非凡纲要。
In it, you can look up voters’ histories, filter names by demographics and location, use the same methods to target volunteers, look at volunteer histories.
在其中，您可以查找选民的历史，按人口统计和位置过滤姓名，使用相同的方法来定位志愿者，查看志愿者的历史。
What do they do with the data?
他们如何处理这些数据？
No one ever explains.
从来没有人解释过。
But somehow it motivates the entire way the campaign handles canvassing.
但不知何故，它激发了竞选活动处理拉票的整个方式。
The days leading up to the get-out-the-vote are tense.
投票前的日子很紧张。
I can think about nothing else, and slowly a poisonous contempt for anyone who can creeps into me.
我无法思考其他事情，慢慢地，一种对任何能思考的人的恶意蔑视潜入我的内心。
I despise my friends who support Sanders but don’t lift a finger to help him.
我鄙视那些支持桑德斯但却不肯帮助他的朋友。
I lament my colleagues, who don’t seem to have done anything either.
我感叹我的同事们，他们似乎也没有做任何事情。
I pick a fight with Shannon, a Sanders supporter who has done no door-to-door work (and who, I decline to remember, is sharing our house with volunteers for four straight days).
我与香农（Shannon）发生了争执，香农是桑德斯的支持者，他没有做过挨家挨户的工作（我不记得他连续四天与志愿者合住我们的房子）。
I can’t understand how anyone could be doing anything else, thinking anything else.
我无法理解怎么会有人做别的事、想别的事。
At the same time, I find it impossible to read election news, or to listen to the simpering voices on NPR.
与此同时，我发现无法阅读选举新闻，也无法聆听 NPR 上傻笑的声音。
The deeper I get into the campaign, the less I know about it, the less the candidate matters to me, and the more the activity becomes the point.
我对竞选活动越深入，我对竞选活动的了解就越少，候选人对我来说就越不重要，而活动就越成为重点。
At some point, the success of Sanders’s platform forces Clinton to endorse a higher minimum wage.
在某种程度上，桑德斯政纲的成功迫使克林顿支持更高的最低工资。
A victory for the campaign — but it barely registers.
竞选活动取得了胜利——但几乎没有被注意到。
Late on Friday, a van pulls up and Jeff unloads several file boxes full of turf packets organized by neighborhood and “ward” (Philadelphia’s arcane district system).
周五晚些时候，一辆面包车停了下来，杰夫卸下了几个文件箱，里面装满了由社区和“区”（费城神秘的地区系统）整理的草皮包。
That night I sleep poorly and wake up early to arrange packets of turf, separating them by ward, stacking them at perpendicular angles.
那天晚上，我睡得很差，很早就起床整理草皮，将它们按病房分开，以垂直的角度堆放。
I make a large pot of coffee and drink most of it myself.
我煮了一大壶咖啡，自己喝了大部分。
Andrew, the campaign hub leader, arrives, and we begin to call the volunteers scheduled to arrive at 9 AM.
竞选中心负责人安德鲁 (Andrew) 抵达，我们开始呼叫计划于上午 9 点抵达的志愿者。
(Part of “following orders” means we don’t send text messages, based on some bit of ancient campaign wisdom whose empirical basis is never disclosed.
（“遵循命令”的一部分意味着我们不发送短信，这是基于一些古老的竞选智慧，其经验基础从未被披露。
Later in the day we break this rule and achieve much better results.) The calls go to voice mail, and we leave mildly threatening messages asking volunteers to call us back if they can’t make their shifts.
当天晚些时候，我们打破了这一规则，取得了更好的结果。）电话会转至语音信箱，我们会留下温和的威胁信息，要求志愿者在无法轮班时给我们回电。
Andrew gets one guy on the phone and engages him in a lengthy conversation about changing shifts.
安德鲁给一个人打电话，与他就换班问题进行了长时间的交谈。
Overhearing it, I feel the contempt rise in my throat.
听到这话，我感觉喉咙里升起了鄙视。
I corner Andrew in the kitchen and violently whisper, “GET HIM TO COMMIT TO A SHIFT!” Andrew mouths back, “I’M TRYING ,” and it’s only then that I recognize what’s happening to me.
我把安德鲁堵在厨房里，粗暴地低声说道：“让他承诺换班！”安德鲁用嘴回应道，“我正在尝试”，直到那时我才意识到发生在我身上的事情。
I have a flashback to the last conversation I had with my union leads, three years ago, when we were in the middle of a campaign to draw attention to budget cuts in the Philadelphia school system.
我回想起三年前我与工会领导的最后一次谈话，当时我们正在进行一场运动，以引起人们对费城学校系统预算削减的关注。
In a drastic escalation, several workers had gone on a week-long hunger strike.
事态急剧升级，几名工人进行了为期一周的绝食抗议。
The strike coincided with closing an issue of n+1 , and I owed the magazine a new draft of an essay.
这次罢工恰逢《n+1》杂志停刊，我欠该杂志一份新的文章草稿。
So while workers were starving themselves for justice on Broad Street, I was sitting in a library carrel at the University of Pennsylvania, twenty blocks away, subjecting the phenomenon of visiting professorships by poets from the global south to a quasi-Marxist analysis.
因此，当工人们在布罗德大街上为正义而饥肠辘辘时，我却坐在二十个街区之外的宾夕法尼亚大学的图书馆里，对南半球诗人客座教授的现象进行准马克思主义分析。
I was called to a meeting with my leads in the food court of a shopping mall, where they screamed at me for my apostasy.
我被叫去一家购物中心的美食广场与我的领导开会，他们因我的叛教而对我大喊大叫。
I screamed back, explaining with a palpable lack of success that I had to write an “Intellectual Situation” on “world literature.” I couldn’t understand why they were so upset with me.
我尖叫着回应，明显没有成功地解释说我必须写一篇关于“世界文学”的“知识分子处境”。我不明白他们为什么对我这么生气。
Didn’t they realize I had obligations to other people?
难道他们没有意识到我对其他人负有义务吗？
Finally they said it was impossible to continue this tripartite existence, as writer, editor, and activist; I would have to choose.
最后他们说，作为作家、编辑和活动家的三重存在是不可能继续下去的。我必须做出选择。
Only now, as I feel myself trying to undo the choice I made, do I recognize their anger.
直到现在，当我觉得自己试图撤销自己所做的选择时，我才意识到他们的愤怒。
The early-morning shift turns out to be a bust — a volunteer or two arrives, we train them and send them off with packets.
早班的结果是半途而废——一两个志愿者到达，我们对他们进行培训，然后给他们送去包裹。
But it leaves time for one of us to go out, and so I leave Andrew and take a packet in what the campaign has deemed, for reasons again unknown to us, a “high-priority” ward: the fifth, which encompasses some of the richest real estate in the city and some of the most highly touristed areas of “Revolutionary” Philadelphia.
但这给我们中的一个人留下了出去的时间，所以我离开安德鲁，带了一个包裹到竞选活动所认为的“高度优先”选区，原因我们又不知道：第五选区，其中包括该市一些最富有的房地产和“革命”费城一些最受游客欢迎的地区。
“Oh, rock on, brother, we’re all feeling the Bern!” He motions to the rest of the waitstaff, a diverse group in 18th-century garb, ferrying plates of squab and flagons of ale.
“哦，加油，兄弟，我们都感受到了伯尔尼！”他向其他服务员示意，他们是一群穿着 18 世纪服装的多元化服务员，端着盘子里的乳鸽和啤酒壶。
Unfortunately, the area was also subject to an infamous instance of urban renewal, with black residents ejected and their homes razed to make way for high-rise apartments — a history that appears to have some bearing on my ability to contact voters in the area.
不幸的是，该地区还经历了一次臭名昭著的城市重建，黑人居民被驱逐，他们的房屋被夷为平地，为高层公寓让路——这段历史似乎对我联系该地区选民的能力产生了一些影响。
Many of the addresses are nonexistent in physical reality; the ones that are turn out to be high-rises.
许多地址在物理现实中并不存在；那些结果是高楼大厦。
Google Maps doesn’t help, and I spend hours wandering through parking lots and across modernist expanses of lawn, looking for houses that don’t exist.
谷歌地图没有帮助，我花了几个小时在停车场和现代主义的广阔草坪上徘徊，寻找不存在的房子。
It’s as if the voter information hasn’t been updated since the 1960s.
就好像自 20 世纪 60 年代以来选民信息就没有更新过一样。
At other buildings, I spend what feels like an eternity pressing apartment buttons and getting no answer, or dealing with recalcitrant doormen.
在其他大楼里，我感觉就像永远按下公寓按钮却得不到回应，或者与顽固的门卫打交道。
I mark entire buildings — containing dozens of voters — “inaccessible.” I wonder what the Clinton people are doing with areas like these.
我将包含数十名选民的整栋建筑标记为“无法进入”。我想知道克林顿家族在这些地区做了什么。
Can they just count on the luxury dwellers to be theirs?
他们能指望奢侈的居民属于他们吗？
After walking up and down one block for twenty minutes, I pop into a tourist restaurant, City Tavern, which purports to serve Ben Franklin’s own recipe for beer, among other colonial-era delights.
在一个街区来回走了二十分钟后，我走进了一家名为“城市酒馆”的旅游餐厅，这家餐厅声称提供本·富兰克林自己配方的啤酒以及其他殖民时代的美食。
I grab a waiter in a tricorn hat, ruffled white shirt, and breeches and ask after the address.
我找了一位戴着三角帽、穿着荷叶边白衬衫和马裤的服务员，询问地址。
He tells me that it doesn’t exist and asks what I’m looking for.
他告诉我它不存在并问我在寻找什么。
I explain that I’m part of the Bernie Sanders campaign, and he lights up.
我解释说我是伯尼·桑德斯竞选团队的一员，他高兴极了。
“Oh, rock on, brother, we’re all feeling the Bern!
“哦，加油，兄弟，我们都感受到了伯尔尼！
I’d say 75 percent of us are voting for the guy.” He motions to the rest of the waitstaff, a diverse group in 18th-century garb, ferrying plates of squab and flagons of ale.
我想说我们 75% 的人都会投票给这个人。”他向其他服务员示意，他们是一群穿着 18 世纪服装的多元化服务员，端着盘子里的乳鸽和啤酒壶。
I get back to my house after this futile exercise, which has taken hours longer than the usual canvassing shift, and discover that, to meet to the campaign’s data needs, Andrew has sent a number of volunteers on these high-rise suicide missions.
经过这次徒劳的活动（比通常的拉票轮班时间要长几个小时）后，我回到家，发现为了满足竞选活动的数据需求，安德鲁派了一些志愿者去执行这些高层自杀任务。
We call up to the deputy field director, who acknowledges that the area is “tough,” but tells us to keep at it, a proposal that is neither reassuring nor comprehensible.
我们打电话给现场副主任，他承认该地区“很艰难”，但告诉我们要坚持下去，这个建议既不令人放心，也不令人理解。
Then, after some complaining, a plan emerges.
然后，经过一番抱怨后，一个计划出现了。
Jessie, our data-entry captain, who is terrified of knocking on doors and making phone calls and therefore sits on the corner of my couch alternating between data entry and complaining about the campaign methods, proposes that we select likely Bernie supporters from apartment towers, “cut” turf designed specifically for their building, and train them over the phone to canvass their buildings.
我们的数据输入队长杰西（Jessie）害怕敲门和打电话，因此坐在我的沙发角上，交替输入数据和抱怨竞选方法。她建议我们从公寓楼中选择可能的伯尼支持者，“切割”专门为他们的建筑设计的草皮，并通过电话训练他们对他们的建筑进行调查。
This strikes us as a brilliant idea, and all the more enticing because we have to hide it from the higher-ups.
这对我们来说是一个绝妙的主意，而且更有吸引力，因为我们必须向高层隐瞒它。
Volunteers arrive in waves, in ages and colors that bear no resemblance to the demographic data constantly used as a cudgel against Sanders by the media.
志愿者一波又一波地涌来，他们的年龄和肤色与媒体经常用来打击桑德斯的人口数据完全不同。
We train new canvassers in the art of talking to strangers; we mimic slamming doors in their faces; we pretend we’re on the fence.
我们训练新的文字布道员与陌生人交谈的艺术；我们当着他们的面模仿关门的动作；我们假装我们处于中立状态。
New Yorkers arrive, bearing the scars and wisdom of their recent primary.
纽约人带着最近初选的伤痕和智慧来到这里。
A Danish visitor has traveled from Aarhus to campaign for Sanders, whom he says would be a center-right candidate in most of Europe.
一位丹麦游客从奥尔胡斯前往为桑德斯竞选，他说桑德斯将成为欧洲大部分地区的中右翼候选人。
Nonetheless, he gives Bernie the Scandinavian stamp of approval.
尽管如此，他还是给了伯尼斯堪的纳维亚人的认可。
“What Bernie says about Scandinavia is absolutely true!” he says.
“伯尼关于斯堪的纳维亚半岛的说法绝对正确！”他说。
“Look, it’s not that we don’t have social problems.
“看，我们并不是没有社会问题。
But at least we have health care, and we take vacations.”
但至少我们有医疗保健，而且我们可以休假。”
After three fourteen-hour days , I’ve gotten used to the ritual of waking up and arranging packets of turf; of grabbing a slice of cold pizza from the fridge and all but dipping the crust in my coffee; of looking up lists of volunteers and texting reminders; of greeting Andrew and Jessie and making them coffee.
经过三个十四小时的日子，我已经习惯了起床和整理草皮的仪式；从冰箱里拿出一片冷披萨，然后把披萨饼皮浸入咖啡里；查找志愿者名单和短信提醒；问候安德鲁和杰西并给他们泡咖啡。
My house has become the center of a Bernie cult on my little block, with its own strange hours and endless stream of visitors, its piles of paper and “literature.” Weird autodidact campaigners come by: the teenager who made his own list of Bernie’s accomplishments and hands it out at the bodega where he works; the woman who made sports-themed Bernie buttons (sadly all Pittsburgh-related, so we can’t wear them into the streets without courting violence).
我的房子已经成为我所在小街区伯尼崇拜的中心，有着奇怪的营业时间和源源不断的访客，还有成堆的纸张和“文学作品”。奇怪的自学者活动家走过来：一个青少年自己列出了伯尼的成就，并在他工作的杂货店分发；制作运动主题伯尼纽扣的女士（遗憾的是，这些纽扣都与匹兹堡有关，所以我们不能穿着它们上街而不招致暴力）。
Happier than I’ve ever been, I also feel the beginnings of burnout.
我比以往任何时候都快乐，但我也开始感到倦怠。
The real staffers are well past this point.
真正的员工已经远远超过了这一点。
Jeff told me days ago he plans to leave the campaign after the Pennsylvania primary; he can’t keep up the hours and is starting to lose his mind.
杰夫几天前告诉我，他计划在宾夕法尼亚州初选后退出竞选活动。他无法跟上时间并且开始失去理智。
One day he comes over to my house, arbitrarily rearranges our turf packets, and then stretches out on my couch and falls asleep for nearly an hour, even as canvassers filter in and out.
有一天，他来到我家，随意重新整理了我们的草皮包，然后躺在我的沙发上睡了近一个小时，尽管布道者进进出出。
Everyone on staff is chugging coffee and energy drinks, and I’m surprised not to hear of harder drugs.
工作人员中的每个人都在喝咖啡和能量饮料，我很惊讶没有听说更难的药物。
I’m worried about the out-of-town Bernie staffer we’re hosting, who “sleeps” on a roll-out mattress in my office upstairs.
我担心我们接待的伯尼外地工作人员，他“睡”在我楼上办公室的折叠床垫上。
She arrived in Philadelphia at eleven o’clock Friday and went straight to the campaign office to work before arriving at our house at 3 AM .
她星期五十一点到达费城，直接去竞选办公室上班，凌晨三点才到我们家。
At seven the next morning we heard her coming down the stairs, but she headed out to work without even stopping to use the bathroom.
第二天早上七点，我们听到她下楼的声音，但她甚至没有停下来上厕所就出去上班了。
All weekend she kept to the same schedule.
整个周末她都遵循相同的时间表。
Yesterday she spent the night at the office.
昨天她在办公室过夜。
Every day, after all the volunteers leave, Andrew, Jessie, and I enter data, drink beer, and talk about the problems of the candidate and his campaign.
每天，在所有志愿者离开后，安德鲁、杰西和我输入数据，喝啤酒，讨论候选人及其竞选活动的问题。
Why aren’t there more campaign staffers from Philadelphia?
为什么没有更多来自费城的竞选工作人员？
Why didn’t we campaign more heavily in the city’s gay neighborhoods?
为什么我们不在该市的同性恋社区开展更大规模的宣传活动？
Why isn’t Bernie campaigning for downballot candidates?
为什么伯尼不为否决候选人竞选？
Why can’t he commit persuasively to Black Lives Matter?
为什么他不能令人信服地致力于“黑人的命也是命”？
We discuss conspiracy theories about Ryan Hughes, the Pennsylvania director for Bernie’s campaign, who was apparently taking money from Hillary’s Super PAC.
我们讨论了有关伯尼竞选宾夕法尼亚州主任瑞安·休斯 (Ryan Hughes) 的阴谋论，他显然从希拉里的超级政治行动委员会那里拿走了钱。
We seem to be preparing for a loss, even though we’re all feeling remarkably bullish about Bernie’s chances.
尽管我们都对伯尼的机会感到非常乐观，但我们似乎正在为失败做好准备。
In the midst of one of these bitchfests, we turn on the television to catch the last minute of Sanders being interviewed by Chris Hayes in Philadelphia, just a mile or two from where we’re sitting, and Sanders’s virtuous civics teacher voice, intoning eternal social democratic truths, makes my eyes mist over.
在一场恶作剧中，我们打开电视，观看桑德斯在费城接受克里斯·海耶斯采访的最后一分钟，距离我们坐的地方只有一两英里，桑德斯高尚的公民老师的声音，吟诵着永恒的社会民主真理，让我的眼睛蒙上了一层雾气。
I’ve grown, despite myself, attached to him as a candidate.
我不由自主地越来越喜欢他作为候选人。
The morning of the primary I go to my polling station and push a button for Bernie Sanders.
初选的早上，我去了投票站，按下了伯尼·桑德斯的投票按钮。
I also cast a gratified vote for John Fetterman, the lefty mayor of Braddock, PA, who’s running for Senate against the Democratic machine candidate Katie McGinty.
我还欣慰地投票给宾夕法尼亚州布拉多克市左翼市长约翰·费特曼 (John Fetterman)，他正在与民主党机器候选人凯蒂·麦金蒂 (Katie McGinty) 竞选参议员。
I stave off the melancholy knowledge that this is all coming to an end by selecting a packet that takes me to the low-rise Section 8 homes near my house.
我选择了一个包裹，将我带到我家附近的第 8 区低层住宅，以此来避免这一切即将结束的忧郁。
It’s Tuesday morning, and not many people are at home.
今天是周二早上，家里的人并不多。
Most of the activity in the neighborhood comes from the bustle of paid-up staff for the machine attorney general candidate, Stephen Zappala.
附近的大部分活动都来自机器总检察长候选人斯蒂芬·扎帕拉 (Stephen Zappala) 的付费工作人员的忙碌。
One of them, an older black woman plastering windshields with leaflets, yells at me from across the parking lot.
其中一位是一位年长的黑人妇女，她在挡风玻璃上贴上传单，在停车场对面对我大喊大叫。
“They’re not opening the door for you,” she says.
“他们不会为你开门，”她说。
“This is Hillary country, boy !” putting a nasty emphasis on the last word.
“这是希拉里的国家，孩子！”令人讨厌地强调最后一个词。
I find myself shaken by this outburst of political malice, only managing to smile weakly and chirp, “We’ll see!” as I continue to the next house.
我发现自己被这种政治恶意的爆发所震撼，只能勉强微笑并叽叽喳喳地说：“我们拭目以待吧！”当我继续前往下一个房子时。
I pick up one of the leaflets and discover to my horror that it’s a piece of total misinformation.
我拿起其中一张传单，惊恐地发现这完全是错误信息。
Marked “Official Democratic Ballot,” it instructs voters that they should vote for the following names: Hillary Clinton, Stephen Zappala, Katie McGinty.
它标有“官方民主党选票”，指示选民应该投票给以下名字：希拉里·克林顿、斯蒂芬·扎帕拉、凯蒂·麦金蒂。
I phone the legal team, who say they’ve gotten reports of these leaflets from all over the city, chiefly in poor neighborhoods, within spitting distance of polling stations.
我给法律团队打电话，他们说他们收到了来自全市各地的传单报告，主要是在距离投票站不远的贫困社区。
I call back to my house, where there are worse reports, of people — it’s not clear who they are — going into the polling booths in the poorest neighborhoods and “helping” voters push buttons for Hillary Clinton.
我打电话回我家，那里有更糟糕的报道称，人们——尚不清楚他们是谁——走进最贫困社区的投票站，“帮助”选民按下希拉里·克林顿的按钮。
Someone hears through the grapevine that Gloria, a Latina volunteer in Fairhill, a mixed black and Puerto Rican neighborhood with a high percentage of Spanish speakers, has been encountering voters who claim to have voted “for Bill Clinton.” On primary day, there are still parts of the city where nobody knows who Bernie Sanders is; many people know only the name Clinton, and are being softly coerced into marking that name, with its long history of varied, unstable meanings.
有人通过小道消息听说，费尔希尔 (Fairhill) 是一个黑人和波多黎各人混血社区，讲西班牙语的人比例很高，格洛丽亚 (Gloria) 是一名拉丁裔志愿者，她遇到了一些自称投票给“比尔·克林顿”的选民。初选当天，这座城市的某些地方仍然没有人知道伯尼·桑德斯是谁；许多人只知道克林顿这个名字，并且被迫标记这个名字，因为这个名字的含义由来已久，含义多样且不稳定。
Suddenly the weight of the world begins to fall on me, on all of us.
突然间，世界的重量开始落在我身上，落在我们所有人身上。
The Bernie bubble is leaking air.
伯尼泡沫正在漏气。
It feels like we are up against more than we understand or can handle.
感觉我们面临的困难超出了我们的理解或处理能力。
About half the voters I speak to are planning to vote for Hillary.
我采访过的选民中约有一半计划投票给希拉里。
Some laugh when I ask whether they plan to vote for Bernie.
当我问他们是否打算投票给伯尼时，有些人笑了。
Others, predominantly younger, say, “Bernie 2016, brother!” and shake my hand.
其他人（主要是年轻人）说：“伯尼，2016 年，兄弟！”并握我的手。
Near the polling station, I overhear one woman ask another, “Did you vote her in?” and the response, “I voted him in!” In the scorched-earth mode of primary-day canvassing, I don’t linger to convince Hillary voters or even to tell them their polling place (most already know).
在投票站附近，我无意中听到一名妇女问另一名妇女：“你给她投票了吗？” ” 和回应，“我投票给他了！在初选拉票的焦土模式中，我不会花时间说服希拉里选民，甚至不会告诉他们投票地点（大多数人已经知道了）。
I’m not even supposed to waste time with fence-sitters; the point is to get the Bernie supporters to the polls.
我什至不应该把时间浪费在骑墙派身上；重点是让伯尼的支持者参加投票。
I try gamely with a woman I spoke to just a few days ago, who seemed impressed with everything I said about Sanders.
我勇敢地尝试与几天前与我交谈过的一位女士交谈，她似乎对我所说的有关桑德斯的一切印象深刻。
When I speak to her again, she says she still doesn’t know whom she’s voting for, and her wary expression lets me know that she’s not willing to entertain my attempts to convince her.
当我再次与她交谈时，她说她仍然不知道自己投票给谁，她谨慎的表情让我知道她不愿意接受我说服她的尝试。
At what is nearly my last door, I break the rules one last time to linger with a black woman in her early sixties who’s on the fence.
在几乎是我的最后一扇门前，我最后一次违反规则，与一位持观望态度的六十岁出头的黑人妇女相处。
“I thought I knew who I was voting for, and now I don’t,” she says, her rheumy eyes searching.
“我以为我知道自己要投票给谁，但现在我不知道了，”她说道，她湿漉漉的眼睛在搜寻。
“I’ve been listening to Bernie on TV just now, the things he says, they give me chills, to hear him say it.
“我刚才在电视上听伯尼讲话，他说的话让我感到不寒而栗。
But the man has been there for a long time, the man keeping us down, ruining the land.
但这个人已经存在了很长时间，他压制了我们，破坏了这片土地。
Maybe time for a woman.
也许是女人的时间了。
Where are you from, brother?” India, I say.
兄弟你是哪里人？”印度，我说。
“You’ve been there too, you know what I’m talking about, they took everything from you.
“你也去过那里，你知道我在说什么，他们夺走了你的一切。
At the African church, you know they found all those bodies the other day, a burial ground that they didn’t even know about?
在非洲教堂，你知道他们前几天发现了所有这些尸体，这是一个他们甚至不知道的墓地？
Who knows whose bodies we’re walking on?
谁知道我们踩在谁的尸体上？
There might be our bodies everywhere, they don’t care, black bodies everywhere underneath us, nobody even knows.” From here, it’s hard to get to the usual topics, but I don’t want to get to them, I don’t want to leave.
可能到处都是我们的尸体，他们不在乎，我们脚下到处都是黑色的尸体，甚至没有人知道。”从这里开始，很难触及通常的话题，但我不想触及它们，我不想离开。
Some odd communion is taking place above and beneath the election, something more important, something closer to the limit of what anyone can articulate.
选举之上和之下正在发生一些奇怪的交流，一些更重要的事情，一些更接近任何人能够表达的极限的事情。
She tells me about not going to war anymore, about taking care of her own, and I lightly go over Sanders versus Clinton on these issues, which again seems to miss the point.
她告诉我不再去打仗，照顾好自己，我在这些问题上轻描淡写地回顾了桑德斯与克林顿的对决，这似乎又没有抓住要点。
I leave the door after thanking her for her time — for once really feeling grateful for it — and realize I’ve spoken to her for half an hour.
在感谢她抽出时间后我离开了门——这一次我真的很感激——然后意识到我已经和她聊了半个小时了。
I still don’t know how she’s going to vote.
我还是不知道她会如何投票。
As the day creeps toward zero hour, we find that we’ve run out of turf.
随着时间临近零点，我们发现我们的地盘已经用完了。
We’ve covered nearly everything.
我们几乎涵盖了所有内容。
The South Philadelphia office has run out too.
南费城办事处也已用完。
When the main Bernie office hears of it, everyone cheers.
当伯尼的主要办公室听到这个消息时，每个人都欢呼雀跃。
To tamp down my hopes, I give myself turf in Society Hill, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Philadelphia, hoping to encounter dozens of Hillary voters and to feel appropriately bad as the polls close.
为了浇灭我的希望，我在费城最富有的社区之一社会山 (Society Hill) 给了自己一块地盘，希望能遇到数十名希拉里选民，并在投票结束时感到适当的糟糕。
But as I start down roads of tall brick rowhouse mansions and a summer downpour commences, I find that the tactic doesn’t work.
但当我沿着高大的砖砌联排别墅的道路走去，夏天的倾盆大雨开始时，我发现这个策略不起作用。
The voter lists have been narrowed to the point that I encounter only Bernie supporters.
选民名单已经缩小到我只遇到伯尼支持者的地步。
A house of five that voted for Bernie, including one 18-year-old in his first election.
众议院有五人投票支持伯尼，其中包括一名 18 岁的年轻人，这是他第一次参加选举。
A 75-year-old white woman who arrives at the door with her two East Asian grandchildren, whom she asks to let me know who she voted for.
一位 75 岁的白人妇女带着她的两个东亚孙子来到门口，她要求孙子告诉我她投票给了谁。
“BERNIE SANDERS!” they cry in unison, and mawkishly enough I choke back tears.
“伯尼·桑德斯！”他们齐声哭泣，我强忍着泪水。
I suddenly feel as if an era of my life were passing.
我突然觉得我生命中的一个时代正在过去。
I leave half my packet unfinished and head back to the house.
我留下了一半未完成的包裹，然后就回家了。
Everyone meets at a bar called The Gaslight.
大家在一家名为 The Gaslight 的酒吧见面。
As soon as I enter, someone asks, “Did you see?” When I look at the screen, I see the result.
我一进去，就有人问：“你看到了吗？”当我看着屏幕时，我看到了结果。
Hillary Clinton is standing at a podium next to a giant version of her stolid blue-and-red icon, the H-arrow, somewhere in the Philadelphia Convention Center.
费城会议中心某处，希拉里·克林顿 (Hillary Clinton) 站在讲台上，旁边是她冷漠的蓝红标志 H 形箭头的巨型版本。
It looks like something out of Citizen Kane .
看起来像是《公民凯恩》里的东西。
The campaign staffers are all on their phones, making contingency plans, buying plane tickets.
竞选工作人员都在打电话，制定应急计划，购买机票。
I’m not sure what they’re doing.
我不确定他们在做什么。
I see Tiffany, my elusive Bernie lodger, and give her a hug.
我看到蒂芙尼，我难以捉摸的伯尼房客，给了她一个拥抱。
Most people are standing in meek attitudes, stirring their drinks, regarding the TV screen with stoic acknowledgment.
大多数人都以温顺的态度站着，搅拌着饮料，以坚忍的态度看着电视屏幕。
We look up wards and districts on our phones.
我们用手机查找选区和地区。
It turns out we won the wards we canvassed, even while Philadelphia as a whole voted almost twice as much for Hillary as for Bernie.
事实证明，我们赢得了我们拉票的选区，尽管整个费城投票给希拉里的票数几乎是伯尼的两倍。
Things are somber until the networks call Rhode Island for Bernie, and a modest cheer goes up.
事情一直很阴沉，直到电视网将罗德岛称为伯尼，人们才开始欢呼起来。
A socialist whom I’ve seen at other primary watch parties does what he always does when Sanders wins a state.
我在其他初选观察党中见过的一位社会主义者做了桑德斯赢得一个州时他总是做的事情。
He begins to sing an old song:
他开始唱一首老歌：
For justice thunders condemn-a-a-tion A-a bet-ter world’s in birth No-o more tradi-tion’s chains will bind us .
因为正义的雷声谴责一个更美好的世界诞生了，不再有传统的锁链将束缚我们。
.
。
.
。
Wearily, I mouth the words along with him.
我疲倦地和他一起说出这句话。
“You know this song?” a volunteer friend asks me incredulously.
“你知道这首歌吗？”一位志愿者朋友难以置信地问我。
I find Jeff, who’s already handed in his resignation, at the bar and buy him a drink.
我在酒吧找到已经递交辞呈的杰夫，请他喝了一杯。
There, to puncture what might otherwise be one of those ridiculous silences I fall into with him, and in a spirit of sorrowful drunken confession, I retell my “story of self,” but I try something different.
在那里，为了打破我和他一起陷入的荒谬沉默，本着一种悲伤的醉酒忏悔的精神，我重述了我的“自我故事”，但我尝试了一些不同的东西。
That I went to a private school on scholarship, where I was one of a few people of color, and felt alienated and unhappy.
我靠奖学金去了一所私立学校，在那里我是少数有色人种之一，感到疏远和不快乐。
That I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood and I felt the injustice of a capricious market society keenly.
我在富裕的社区长大，敏锐地感受到反复无常的市场社会的不公正。
That I took this with me into my writing, but that I wanted to do more.
我把这一点带入了我的写作中，但我想做更多。
He tells me that this is more convincing than anything I told him before, but I’m not so sure.
他告诉我，这比我之前告诉他的任何事情都更有说服力，但我不太确定。
I tell him that I don’t want to be a writer anymore, that I want to give it up, that it seems impossible to do both things — one will always seem false to the other.
我告诉他，我不想再当一名作家，我想放弃它，两件事似乎不可能同时做——一件事对另一件事来说总是虚假的。
This, too, seems inadequate, insufficiently “dialectical,” but I can’t face it any other way.
这似乎也不够充分，不够“辩证”，但我无法以其他方式面对它。
Wake up late .
起晚了。
Instead of arranging turf in the morning, I start to pile it up for discard.
我没有在早上整理草坪，而是开始把它们堆起来准备丢弃。
Still somehow wary, I set aside the turf packets that we printed privately for the apartment towers, which we had not so covertly kept in a folder marked ROGUE OPERATION .
出于某种原因，我仍然保持警惕，将我们私下为公寓楼打印的草皮包放在一边，我们并没有如此秘密地将其保存在标有“ROGUE OPERATION”的文件夹中。
Jeff texts me around noon, saying he can come pick it up.
中午时分，杰夫给我发短信，说他可以来取。
He arrives and wordlessly we begin shifting boxes and piles of paper into his station wagon.
他到了，我们一言不发地开始把箱子和成堆的纸搬进他的旅行车。
I open the trunk and find dozens of plastic-wrapped copies of the London Review of Books .
我打开行李箱，发现了几十本塑料包装的《伦敦书评》。
I wish Jeff good luck.
我祝杰夫好运。
He gives me another one of his mute stares, leavened slightly by the hint of a smile, and heads back to Chicago.
他又默默地看了我一眼，脸上带着一丝微笑，然后就返回了芝加哥。