特朗普為何推行“Twitter外交”？

I’ve noticed a change in my morning reading habits. Before I turn to US newspapers’ homepages, I’ve been checking Twitter, where I begin by searching @realdonaldtrump for overnight news about the US president-elect’s transition. So I am coming round to the conclusion of several communications experts: Donald Trump’s Twitter strategy may indeed be genius — and it could well reshape the relationship between politics and the media.

我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己早上的閱讀習慣變了。在瀏覽美國各大報紙的網(wǎng)站之前，我會看Twitter，首先通過搜索@realdonaldtrump，查看有關這位美國當選總統(tǒng)權力過渡的隔夜新聞。因此，我開始接受一些溝通專家的結論：唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的Twitter戰(zhàn)略或許確實是一項天才戰(zhàn)略，而且很可能重塑政治與媒體間的關系。

And yet, while Twitter has served Mr Trump brilliantly so far, it’s also a dangerous fixation that I hope will stop on the day he enters the White House. As the world watches for policy clues from the new administration, the daily tweeting is showing up Mr Trump’s ignorance of diplomatic subtleties and seeming disregard for geopolitical complexities. The tweeting won’t look so clever if 140 uncensored characters spark a war in some part of the world.

然而，雖然到目前為止Twitter為特朗普出了大力，但我希望他這種對Twitter的危險癡迷在入主白宮的那天終結。在全世界都在尋找線索以把握美國新政府的政策方向之際，每天在Twitter上發(fā)文暴露了特朗普對外交種種微妙之處的無知，并且貌似對地緣政治復雜性頗不以為然。如果這些未經(jīng)審查的140個字的帖子在世界某地引發(fā)戰(zhàn)爭，那在Twitter上發(fā)文看起來就不那么明智了。

For months, Twitter was an effective insurgency weapon, used to circumvent the mainstream media. Candidate Trump reached out directly to a public whose craving for change he understood better than most. Despite his tendency to mix truth and fiction, he managed to convince voters that he was more credible than established media.

幾個月來，Twitter是有效的反叛工具，被用于繞過主流媒體。總統(tǒng)候選人特朗普直接接觸到了那些渴望改變現(xiàn)狀的民眾，他比大多數(shù)人都更了解這種心理。雖然喜歡將事實與虛構混淆在一起，但他成功地說服選民相信他比老牌媒體更可信。

As president-elect, Mr Trump has resorted to Twitter to lash out at critics, including the New York Times and CNN. He’s used Twitter to build suspense as he parades potential nominees to his administration and keeps us guessing about the ultimate winners. Perhaps less noticed is his tweeting for the purpose of diversion. His tirade against the cast of the musical Hamilton one day last month dominated the news cycle, overshadowing a far more substantive Trump story: that he’d agreed to pay $25m to resolve claims that he ran a fraudulent real estate course.

當選總統(tǒng)后，特朗普利用Twitter猛烈抨擊了批評他的媒體，包括《紐約時報》(The New York Times)和美國有線電視新聞網(wǎng)(CNN)。在考察新政府可能提名的官員時，他利用Twitter制造懸念，讓我們猜不到誰將是最終贏家。或許不太被注意到的是他會利用Twitter轉移公眾注意力。他上月某天對音樂劇《漢密爾頓》(Hamilton)劇組的攻擊言論成為熱點新聞，掩蓋了一起涉及特朗普的重大得多的事件：他同意支付2500萬美元，就針對其開設的欺騙性房地產(chǎn)課程的訴訟達成和解。

With the inauguration weeks away, the tweeting, when combined with the impulsiveness of the president-elect and his unfamiliarity with world events, makes a combustible mix. After he took a phone call from the leader of Taiwan, Mr Trump tweeted at the weekend that the president had called him, as if he had no choice but to respond, then wondered why the US sold Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but he could not accept a call from the president.

在距就職典禮只有幾周之際，在Twitter上發(fā)文——加上特朗普易沖動且對世界事務不熟悉——很可能引發(fā)意想不到的后果。在接到來自臺灣領導人的一通電話后，特朗普上周末在Twitter上稱，臺灣總統(tǒng)給他打來電話——仿佛他別無選擇，只能接聽——接著便驚嘆為什么美國賣給臺灣數(shù)十億美元軍事裝備，而他卻連臺灣總統(tǒng)的來電都不能接。

Did he mean to mark a shift in US policy? Did someone put him up to it? Mr Trump did not feel the need to elaborate, nor would Twitter have been an appropriate medium. In any case, by the next morning he had moved on. His main worry was Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of his tweeting mania on Saturday Night Live. “Unwatchable,” tweeted Mr Trump. “Just can’t get any worse.”

他想要對美國的政策做出改變嗎?有人鼓動他這樣做嗎?特朗普并不覺得有必要詳盡闡述自己的政策，而Twitter也并非闡述政策的合適媒介。不管怎樣，到了第二天早上，他就轉移話題了。他主要擔心的是亞歷克•鮑德溫(Alec Baldwin)在《周六夜現(xiàn)場》(Saturday Night Live)中對他發(fā)帖癖好的模仿。“根本沒法看，”特朗普在推特上寫道，“簡直不能更糟了。”

There are times when controlled and well-judged tweeting can be a helpful diplomatic tool for a president. It played an imaginative role, for example, in the diplomatic dance between the US and Iran during the negotiations over the fate of Tehran’s nuclear programme. But as any reputation manager would advise, leaders, like celebrities, should either stay away from Twitter or make sure their accounts are closely managed.

有時候，在Twitter上發(fā)布受約束、考慮周到的帖子可以成為對總統(tǒng)有利的外交工具。例如，這樣做在伊朗核問題談判期間美伊的外交斡旋中發(fā)揮了富有想象力的作用。但是，正如任何注重聲譽的管理者都會建議，領導人應該像明星一樣，要么遠離Twitter，要么確保自己的賬戶處于嚴格管理之下。

Mr Trump thrives on controversy, however, and he’s confident that he’s mastered a new art form. He has bragged that a fan had dubbed him the “Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters”. Although he’s not exactly tech savvy (he apparently dictates his tweets during the day but types them at night), he’s found in Twitter a channel of communication that suits his personality and his vocabulary. An analysis of his tweets by Politico earlier this year showed that he used words like “great”, “loser”, “winner”, and “stupid” twice as much as other presidential candidates.

然而，特朗普在爭議聲中愈戰(zhàn)愈勇，他自信掌握了一種新的藝術形式。他曾吹噓，一名粉絲稱他為“140個字的海明威(Ernest Hemingway)”。雖然他并不多么精通技術(據(jù)說他在白天口述帖子內(nèi)容，然后在夜里才打出來發(fā)表)，他在Twitter上找到了一條適合自己性格和措辭的溝通渠道。Politico今年早些時候對他Twitter貼文的分析顯示出，他使用“偉大”，“輸家”、“贏家”、“愚蠢”等詞匯的次數(shù)是其他總統(tǒng)候選人的兩倍。

Will Mr Trump give up Twitter after inauguration day? He is about to leverage his reach — soon he inherits @Potus with 12.4m followers (@realdonaldtrump has 16.8m) and he is not one to pass on an opportunity. In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, he said he would be “very restrained” if he continued tweeting, while saying that “there should be nothing you should be ashamed of”. Mr Trump, however, doesn’t do restraint well. On Monday, he tweeted: “If the press would cover me accurately & honorably, I would have far less reason to tweet. Sadly, I don’t know if that will ever happen”.

特朗普在就職典禮后會放棄Twitter嗎?他會對他能接觸到的受眾施加影響——很快他將獲得擁有1240萬粉絲的美國總統(tǒng)賬號@Potus(@realdonaldtrump擁有1680萬粉絲)，他是不會錯過任何機會的。在接受哥倫比亞廣播公司(CBS)的《60分鐘》(60 Minutes)節(jié)目采訪時，他稱如果繼續(xù)在Twitter上發(fā)帖的話，自己會“非?？酥?rdquo;，同時表示“沒有什么應該感到羞恥的”。然而，特朗普并沒很好地克制。周一，他在Twitter上寫道：“如果媒體能準確、體面地報道我，我在Twitter上發(fā)文的理由就少多了。遺憾的是，我不知道這會不會發(fā)生。”