Peter Thiel 关于美国大选的演讲

谁是 Peter Thiel？

Peter Thiel 是 Paypal 联合创始人，硅谷投资人，《从0到1》作者。Peter Thiel 向来以敏锐的眼光和独到的见解出名，用他自己的话说，叫“反主流观点”。

2016年川普竞选期间，Peter Thiel 是唯一公开支持川普的硅谷大佬。

不妨阅读演讲原文，了解 Peter Thiel 的具体想法。

全文听译

Peter Thiel FULL Speech Supporting Trump at National Press Club - October 31, 2016

原视频链接：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfYLEPRiIyE

Thank you very much for having me here.

有机会来到这里演讲，非常感谢。

Everybody knows we've been living through a crazy election year. Real events seem like a rehearsal for Saturday night live. Only an outbreak of insanity would seem to account for the unprecedented fact, that this year a political outsider manage to win a major party nomination. To the people who are used to influencing our choice of leaders, to the wealthy people who give money, and the commentators who give reasons why, it all seems like a bad dream. Donors don't want to find out how and why we got here. They just want to move on. Come November 9th, they hope everyone else would go back to business, as usual.

我们刚刚经历了一次疯狂的大选。以前只在周六晚间剧场上演的情节，现在成了现实。一位毫无从政经验的人，赢得了主要党派的提名，这不仅史无前例，更是疯狂至极。对于那些习惯于舆论引导的大V、出钱资助的富豪，以及分析得头头是到的评论员们，这是一场噩梦。捐助者们不会去反思我们是如何走到这一步，他们只希望当大选结束的时候每个人都若无其事地回到自己的工作岗位上。

But it's just this headlessness, this temptation to ignore difficult realities, indulged in by our most influential citizens, that got us where we are today. A lot of successful people are too proud to admit it, since it puts their success in question. But the truth is, no matter how crazy this election seems, it is less crazy than the condition of our country.

我们中最有影响力的那些人倾向于忽视现实中的难题，正是他们的这种漫不经心，导致了我们当下的处境。「成功人士」们太过清高，不愿承认这一点，因为承认事实会让他们的成功受到质疑。但事实上，我们国家所面临的现状比这次选举本身更加疯狂。

Just look at the generation that supplies most of our leaders. The baby boomers are entering retirement in a state of actuarial bankrupcy: 64% of those over the age of 55 have less than a year's worth of savings to their name.

看看正在领导国家的这代人吧，婴儿潮时期出生的人们正面临退休，但是他们却处于行将破产的境地：55岁以上的人中，有64%人名下的存款只能支撑不到一年。

That is a problem, especially when this is the only country where you have to pay up to 10 times as much for simple medicines as you would pay anywhere else. America's over priced health care system might help subsidize the else of the world. But that doesn't help the Americans who can't afford it. And they've started to notice.

存款过少本身就是一大问题，何况我们的医疗费用比世界其他地方要贵10倍。美国过于昂贵的医疗系统或许可以补贴世界上的其他地区，但是对于负担不起的美国民众毫无意义。并且民众们已经开始意识到这个问题。

Our youngest citizens may not have huge medical bills, but their college tutition keeps increasing faster than the rate of inflation, adding more every year, to a 1.7 trillion dollar amount of student debt. America has become the only country where students take on loans that they can never escape, not even by declaring bankrupcy. Stuck in this broken system, Millennials are the first generation who expect their own lives to be worse than the lives of their parents.

年轻人没有这么大的医疗开销，但他们的学费增长速度却超过了通货膨胀率。美国的学生贷款已经达到了1.3万亿，并在继续逐年增长。美国的学生背负了无法摆脱的债务，也无法宣布破产，这在世界上其他国家闻所未闻。00后这代人深深地陷入了这种垮掉的体制当中，他们的生活水平可能会史无前例地低于自己的父辈。

While American family expenses have been increasing relentlessly, their incomes have been stagnant. In real dollars, the median household makes less money today than they made 17 years ago. Nearly half of Americans wouldn't be able to come up with 400 dollars if they need it for an emergency.

美国家庭的开销急剧增长的同时，收入却停滞不前。折算成实际购买力，美国中产家庭的收入比17年前低。将近一半美国人拿不出400美元来应急。(注：该数据存疑，点此查看)

Yet our households struggle to keep up with challenges of everyday life, the government is wasting trillions of dollars of taxpayer money on faraway wars. Right now, we're fighting five of them, in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.

面对国内民众生活上的挑战，政府却在遥远的 战争上浪费数万亿美元的税收。现在，我们正在五个地方打不宣而战的战争：伊拉克、叙利亚、利比亚、也门和索马里。

Now, not everyone is hurting. In the wealthy suburbs that ring Washinton D.C., people are doing just fine. Where I work in Silicon Valley, people are doing just great. But most Americansf don't live by the belt way or the San Francisco Bay. Most Americans haven't been part of that prosperity. It should't be surprising to see people voting for Berny Sanders, or for Donald Trump, who is the only outsider left in the race.

但并不是每个人都能体会到生活的艰难。在环绕华盛顿的富裕地区，在我所工作的硅谷，生活水平依然很不错。但绝大多数美国人并不生活在这两个地区，他们是这场繁华盛世的局外人。看到人们把选票投给桑德斯，或者投给川普的时候，不应当感到奇怪，因为他是竞选中仅剩的「局外人」。

Very few people who vote for president have ever thought of doing something so extreme as running for president. The people who run are often polarizing. This election year, both major candidates are imperfect people, to say the least.

参与投票的普通选民中，很少有人会想着自己去竞选总统。参选的人往往是极端的。这次大选中两党的候选人，客气地说，都不太完美。

I don't agree with everything Donald Trump has said and done. And I don't think the millions of other people voting for him do, either. Nobody thinks his comments about women were acceptable. I agree they were clearly offensive and inappropriate. But I don't think the voters pull the lever to endorse a candidate's flaws.

我并不是同意川普说的每句话，也不赞同他做的每一件事。我想其他上百万投票给他的选民也不是这样。没人会接受川普关于女性的言论。我同意，这些言论显然是不恰当的。但选民把票投给他，不代表支持他的错误。

It's not a lack of judgement that leads Americans to vote for Trump. We're voting for Trump because we judge the leadership of our country to have failed. This judgement has been hard to accept for some of this country's most fortunate, socially prominent people. It's certainly hard to accept for Silicon Valley, where many people have learnt to keep quiet if they dissent from the coastal bubble.

让人把票投给川普的原因不是他们缺乏判断力。相反，投票给川普，正是因为他们认为目前的领导是失败的。对于某些最富有、最杰出的「精英」来说，这个结论难以接受。对硅谷人尤其如此，在硅谷，人们已经学会了当自己的意见与“海岸泡沫”相背时保持沉默（具体怎么理解？）。

Louder voices have sent a message that they do not intent to tolerate the views of one half of the country. This intollerance has taken on some bizzare forms. The Advocate, a magazine which once praised me as a 'gay innovator', even published an article saying that as of now I am, and i quote, 'not a gay man', because I don't agree with their politics. The lie behind the buzzword 'diversity', could not be made more clear. If you don't conform, then you don't count as diverse, no matter what your personal background.

已经有人大张旗鼓地宣称，不能容忍另一半美国人的观点。他们对这种不宽容甚至不加任何掩饰。The Advocate 杂志曾经称赞我是「同性恋中的革新者」，现在发文称目前，不再承认我属于“同性恋者”的一员，因为我不赞同这家杂志所持的政见。他们鼓吹的「求同存异」的口号只是一个谎言。如果你不向他们政见妥协，那你就不再是「求同存异」的对象，无论你的出身、背景如何。

Faced with such contempt, why do voters still support Donald Trump? Even if they think American situation is serious, why do they think that Trump, of all people, could make it any better? I think it's becaouse of the big things that Trump get right. For example, free trade has not worked out well for all of America. It helps Trump that the other side just doesn't get it.

这样的蔑视并没有阻止选民们投票给川普，为什么？就算他们认为美国正面临着严重的问题，凭什么认为在所有候选人中，川普能带来改观呢？我觉得是川普在一些重大问题上做对了。举个例子，自由贸易并没有让所有美国人受益。川普能赢，是因为竞争对手没有认识到问题所在。

All of our elites preach free trade. The highly educated people who make public policy explain that cheap imports make everyone a winner, according to economical theory. But in actual practice, we've lost tens of thousands of factories and millions of jobs to foreign trade. The heartland has been devastated. Maybe policy makers really believe that nobody loses, or maybe they don't worry about it too much, because they think they're among the winners.

所有精英都是自由贸易的布道者。政策制订者受过良好的教育，根据他们学到的经济学理论，便宜的进口商品能让每个人受益。但是实际上，由于进口商品的冲击，我们失去了数以千计的工厂，数百万的工作岗位。中部地区的经济被完全摧毁。或许执政者们真的认为没有人受到了进口的影响，或许他们只是不在乎，因为他们自己是受益者。

The sheer size of the US trade deficit shows that something has gone badly wrong. The most developed country in the world should be exporting capital to less developed countries. Instead, the United States are importing more than five hundred billions dollars every year. That money flows into financial assets. It distorts our economy in favor of more banking and more financialization. And it gives the well connected people who benefit a reason to defend this status quo. But not everyone benefits, and the Trump voters know it.

美国巨大的贸易逆差说明了一定存在严重的问题。作为世界上最发达的国家，美国理应向其他国家出口资本，但是实际上却每年的进口都超过五千亿美元。这些资金流向金融机构，扰乱了我们的经济，催生出更多的银行，让我们的市场更加金融化。另外，这些资本给了那些彼此紧密联系的受益者理由，让他们去维护这一体系不被改变。但受益的是少数人，川普的支持者都看清了这一点。

Trump voters are also tired of war. We have been at war for fifteen years, and we have spent more than 4.6 trillions dollars. More than two million people have lost their lives, and more than five thousand Americans soldiers have been killed. But we haven't won. The Bush administration promised that fifty billion dollars could bring democracy to Iraq. Instead, we've sqandered 40 times as much to bring about chaos.

川普的支持者们厌倦了战争。我们已经打了十五年的仗，花掉了4.6万亿美元。战争造成了两百万以上的伤亡，超过五千名美国士兵为国捐躯。然而，我们依然没有取得胜利。小布什政府承诺，五百亿美元可以建立一个民主的伊拉克。然而，我们已经花掉了比预算高出40倍的资金，却没能给伊拉克带去民主，只有混乱。

Yet even after these bipartisan failures, the Democratic Party is more hawkish today than at any time since it began the war in Vietnam. Harking back to the no-fly-zone that Bill Clinton enforced over Iraq before Bush's failed war, now Hillary Clinton has called for a no-fly-zone over Syria. Incredibly, that would be a mistake even more reckless than invading Iraq, since most plains flying over Syria today are Russian plains. Clinton's proposed course of action would do worse than involve us in a messy civial war, it will risk a direct nuclear conflict.

虽然经历了这么多失败，今天的民主党却比越战时更加鹰派。克林顿在伊拉克设立的禁飞区，后来布什打破了禁飞区，发起战争，但最终失败，然而现在希拉里却又提议在叙利亚设置禁飞区。希拉里的这一提议比克林顿的更危险，因为目前叙利亚上空的飞机大多是俄罗斯飞机。以前，美国只是卷入别国内战，但这次希拉里的鲁莽提议则会让我们面临直接的核战争威胁。

What explains this eagerness to escalate the dangerous situation? How can Hillary Clinton be so wildly over optimistic about the outcome of war. I would suggest it comes from a lot of practice. For a long time, our elites have been in the habit of denying difficult realities. That's how bubbles form. Whenever there is a hard problem, but people want to believe a easy solution, they will be tempted to denying reality and inflate a bubble.

如何解释这种面临问题不缓解，却更加急切地让问题扩大的倾向呢？希拉里为何对她的政策可能导致的战争后果如此乐观？我认为，这跟决策者们此前的经历有关。长久以来，我们的「精英」养成了否认事实的习惯。泡沫就是这么产生的。一旦有棘手的问题，他们往往会否认问题的存在，并催生泡沫。

Something about the experience of the baby boomers, who's lives have been so much easier than their parents' or their children's, has lead them to buy into bubbles again and again. The trade bubble says everyone is a winner. The war bubble says victory is just around the corner. But those over optimistic stories simply haven't been true. And voters are tired of being lied to.

对婴儿潮时期出生的人们来说，生活比他们的父辈要容易得多，或许也会比他们的子女容易。这样的经历使得他们倾向于相信泡沫。贸易泡沫鼓吹者说，每个人都是赢家。战争泡沫鼓吹者说，胜利就在眼前。但这些只是过于乐观的故事，不是事实。选民们不想再上这样的当了。

It is both insane and somehow inevitable that D.C. insiders expect that this election to be a rerun between the two political dynasties who led us through the two most gigantic financial bubbles of our time. President George W. Bush presided over the inflation of a housing bubble so big that it's collapse is still causing economic stagnation today. But what strangely forgotten is that last decade's housing bubble was just an attempt to make up for the gains that had been lost in the decade before that. In the 1990s president Bill Clinton presided over an enormous stock market bubble, and a devastating crash in 2000 just as his second term was coming to an end. That's how long the same people has been pursuing the same disastrous policies.

华盛顿的政客们希望这次大选只是正常的交替，之后我们自然就能渡过目前最大的两场金融泡沫，这样的想法虽然疯狂，但是也无可避免。布什任期内的房地产泡沫十分巨大，泡沫破灭的影响一起持续到今天，导致经济停滞不前。但难以理解的是，人们忘了这次泡沫的初衷是为了补偿更早一段时间的‘损失’。1990年代，克林顿总统任期内出现了一场巨大的股市泡沫，2000年他的第二个任期即将结束时，股市的破灭带来了毁灭性的后果。这几十年来，同一群人一直在坚持推行同样的错误政策。

Now that someone different is in the running, someone who rejects the false, reassuring stories that tell us everything is fine. His larger than life persona attacts a lot of attention. Nobody would suggest that Donald Trump is a humble man. But the big things that he is right about, amount to a much needed dose of humility in our politics. Very unusually for a presidential candidate, he has question the core concept of America exceptionalism. He doesn't think the force of optimism alone can change reality without hardwork.

现在，终于有和他们不同的人参选了。这位候选人拒绝相信那些虚假的、安慰人心的、告诉人们一切都会好起来的说辞。他鲜明的个性吸引了很多注意力。没有人会认为川普是个谦逊的人。但他在重大问题上的正确立场，却展示出了当局在制订政策时所缺乏的低姿态。他对美国卓异的理念提出了质疑，认为美国不再伟大，这在总统候选人中很罕见。他认为，没有辛苦的付出，空有乐观精神，解决不了现实中的问题。

Just as much as it's about to make America great, Trump's agenda is about making America a normal country. A normal country doesn't have a half a trillion trade deficit. A normal country doesn't fight five simultaneous undeclared wars. In a normal country the government actually does it job.

尽管川普的口号是让美国再次伟大，他的政策实际上是让美国成为一个正常的国家。正常的国家不会有上万亿的贸易逆差。正常的国家不会同时打五场战争。在正常的国家中，政府需要有所作为。

And today it's important to recognize the government has a job to do. Voters are tired to hear conservative politicians say that government never works. They know that the government was never this broken. The Manhattan Project, the interstate highway system, the Apollo Program, whatever you think of these ventures, you cannot doubt the competence of the government that got them done.

目前，重要的是承认政府理应有所作为。选民们厌倦了保守的政客们所鼓吹的政府无用论。选民们知道，纵观历史，政府从未这样破败。曼哈顿计划、洲际公路系统、阿波罗计划，不管你认为这些工程的实际价值如何，你必须承认，当时的政府有完成这些大型工程的能力。

But we have fallen very far from that standard. We cannot let free market ideology serve as an excuse for decline. No matter what happens in this election, what Trump represents isn't crazy, and it's not going away. He points toward a new Republican Party beyond the dogmas of Reaganism. He points even beyond the remaking of one party, to a new American politics that overcomes denial, rejects bubble-thinking, and reckons with reality.

然而，目前的政府远远达不到这个标准。我们不能让自由市场理论成为经济衰退的借口。无论这次选举的结果如何，川普所代表的理论念并不是一无是处，也不会凭空消失。在里根主义的教条之外，他指出了一个新的执政方向，一种新的政策思路：不否认困难，不制造泡沫，不忽视事实。

When the distracting skeptical of this election seasons are forgotten, and the history of our time is written, the only important question will be: whether or not that new politics came too late.

当后人书写这个时代的历史时，那些嘈杂的怀疑论调会被遗忘，唯一重要的问题是：这样的新政是否来得太晚。

Thank you.

谢谢。