经济学人下载:约翰逊语言专栏--特朗普弹劾战中情绪化的用词(2)

These buzzwords have caught on all the same. Mr Trump’s camp recently produced a slick television advertisement featuring ordinary voters reaching into this grab-bag of comparisons, calling impeachment a “witch hunt”, a “scam” and a “joke”. Naturally, Democrats want to rally their troops, too, and have duly come up with dubious slogans of their own. Rashida Tlaib, who was elected to Congress in November 2018, said her goal was to “impeach the motherfucker”. Her campaign marketed the catchphrase (bowdlerised with stars) as a t-shirt. For his part, Bill Weld, a dissident Republican, has said that Mr Trump is guilty of “treason”, reminding his audience that the penalty for that is death.
这些流行语仍然很流行。特朗普阵营最近制作了一个漂亮的电视广告，展示了普通选民在这些比较中处于，称弹劾是“政治迫害”、“骗局”和“笑话”。当然，民主党人也想集结他们的军队，并适时地提出了他们自己的可疑口号。2018年11月当选国会议员的拉希达·特莱布表示，她的目标是“弹劾这个混蛋”。 她的竞选团队将这句口号(饰有星星)宣传为一件t恤。持不同政见的共和党人比尔•维尔德则表示，特朗普犯有“叛国罪”，提醒他的听众，这种行为的惩罚是死亡。

Such is the nature of the process, however, that, as the accusers, congressional Democrats faced another, very different challenge: while pressing their political case, they also had to hone specific charges for the articles of impeachment. Two that they considered, “extortion” and “bribery”, both had disadvantages. One was that they are contradictory; extortion involves putting a squeeze on a victim, while bribery is more consensual. The second drawback was that both are federal crimes. Politically, if not in law (since the Senate is not a courtroom), pursuing either would have led to demands that they should be proven to the standard of a criminal prosecution. Failure might have undermined the case.
然而，由于弹劾程序的性质，国会中的民主党人面临着另一个截然不同的挑战：在推动他们的政治主张的同时，他们还必须为弹劾条款提出具体的指控。他们认为“勒索”和“贿赂”这两个词都有缺点。一是它们相互矛盾；敲诈勒索包括对受害者施加压力，而贿赂则更多是双方自愿的。第二个缺点是两者都是联邦犯罪。在政治上，如果不是在法律上(因为参议院不是法庭)，追求其中任何一个都会导致要求他们被证明符合刑事起诉的标准。失败可能会破坏这个案子。