Why is America so alarmed by Brexit? Lest the reader be in doubt, remind yourself of this. Never before has a sitting US president visited a fellow democracy in a bid to sway an election. Nor, until now, have 13 former US secretaries of state and defence risked addressing a letter to a foreign electorate¹ with the same motive². Ditto eight former Treasury³ secretaries and five former supreme⁴ commanders of Nato. Not only has the US establishment broken its non-interference rule over Brexit, it is stamping on its smithereens. If we did not know better, it might seem the UK was uniquely important to the future of the world.

美国为什么对英国退欧如此惊慌？为避免读者生疑，提醒你自己这一点。在此之前，从未有过在任美国总统为影响一场投票而出访兄弟民主国家，也从未有过13名美国前国务卿和国防部长以同样动机冒险给外国选民写信。这样做的还有8名前财政部长以及5名北约(Nato)前最高指挥官。美国的体制内人士不仅在英国退欧问题上打破了不干涉原则，还在上面踩上一脚。如果我们不懂的话，我们还以为英国真的对世界的未来具有独特的重要性。

Seductive though that thought may be — particularly for a Brit living in Washington — there is a domestic subtext that can be summarised in two words: Donald Trump⁵. If the British are foolish enough to leave Europe, perhaps Americans are crazy enough to elect Mr Trump. Of course, no one would claim a causal link between what happens in Britain on June 23 and the US presidential election in November. Most American voters have never heard of Brexit. Nor would most feel strongly either way if they had.

尽管这种想法或许诱人——尤其是对居住在华盛顿的英国人而言——但美国国内有个两个词的潜台词：唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)。如果英国人愚蠢到选择脱离欧洲，也许美国人真会疯狂到选举特朗普当总统。当然，没人会断言英国6月23日的退欧公投结果与11月的美国总统大选之间存在因果关系。多数美国选民从未听说过英国退欧。即使听说了，他们中多数人对公投结果也会无动于衷。

Yet there are sufficient echoes to trouble America’s besieged⁶ elites⁸. In much the same way US music companies test products in the British market, or TV production companies simply borrow what works, the Brexit referendum has become a trial balloon for the health of western democracy. Think of The Office, that dystopian Slough-set comedy that captivated British viewers. Not long after, the US Scranton-based version pulled off a similar hit. For decades, US and UK political trends have tracked each other. Margaret Thatcher⁹ swept to power in 1979, the year before Ronald Reagan was elected president. Bill Clinton’s New Democrats¹⁰ paved the way in 1992 for Tony Blair’s New Labour five years later.

然而，两件事之间存在足够的回声，让已经被特朗普搞得焦头烂额的美国精英感到不安。就像美国音乐公司在英国市场测试产品，或是电视制作公司借用成功的节目模式一样，英国退欧公投已成为西方民主政体健康状况的试探气球。想想《办公室风云》(The Office)，这部场景设在斯劳市(Slough)的反乌托邦喜剧迷住了英国观众。不久之后，美国以宾西法尼亚州斯克兰顿市(Scranton)为背景的翻拍版本同样掀起了收视热潮。几十年来，美英两国的政治趋势相互追随。1979年，玛格丽特•撒切尔(Margaret Thatcher)在英国上台执政，一年后，罗纳德•里根(Ronald Reagan)当选美国总统。比尔•克林顿(Bill Clinton)的新民主党人(New Democrats)在1992年为5年后托尼•布莱尔(Tony Blair)的新工党(New Labour)开辟了道路。

The demographic parallels between those backing Brexit and Mr Trump’s supporters are too close to ignore — almost eerily¹¹ so. Their motives¹² are equally simplistic. Leaving Europe is to Brexiters what building a wall with Mexico is to Trumpians — a guillotine on the cacophonous¹³ multiculturalism¹⁴ of 21st-century life. From an empirical point of view, Mr Trump’s beautiful wall is no different to the splendid isolation¹⁵ of Boris Johnson, the leading Brexit campaigner: both are reckless illusions. From a poetic¹⁶ standpoint, however, they offer a clean solution to the alienations of the postmodern society. Winston Churchill joked that Britain and America were divided by a common language. Today blue-collar whites on both sides of the Atlantic are speaking in the same idiom. They both yearn¹⁷ for the certainties of a lost age.

支持退欧的群体在人口结构上与特朗普支持者如此相近（这一点近乎诡异），令人无法忽视。他们的动机也同样简单化。脱离欧盟之于退欧派就像在美墨边境修筑隔离墙之于特朗普的支持者——与21世纪喧闹多元文化的生活现实决裂。从实证角度看，特朗普的壮丽隔离墙与退欧阵营灵魂人物鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)描绘的“光辉孤立”景象并无不同：两者都是鲁莽的痴想。然而，从诗意角度看，他们为后现代社会的疏远提供了一种干脆的解决办法。温斯顿•丘吉尔(Winston Churchill)曾开玩笑说，英美两国被共同的语言割裂。如今，大西洋两岸的蓝领白人操着同样的惯用语。他们都渴望另一个时代的确定性。

Both also rely on the specious¹⁸ legalese of their plutocratic¹⁹ champions. Mr Johnson wants to liberate²⁰ the UK from an often fictitious²¹ web of European regulations. Mr Trump insists he is opposed only to illegal Hispanics. Legal ones are apparently²² welcome. Their true appeal, however, is based on nationalist populism. Both can legitimately²³ point to the hypocrisy²⁴ of the elites they campaign against. Mr Cameron vowed²⁵ to cap net UK immigration at 100,000 a year — a promise he failed to keep. Successive US administrations have promised to enforce America’s borders before offering amnesty. As a test of market conditions, Britain’s contest between elite⁷ hypocrisy and populist sincerity²⁶ could not be bettered.

这两个群体也都依赖各自有钱有势的领导者口中似是而非的法律措辞。约翰逊希望将英国从欧洲法规的蛛网（大部分是虚构的）中解脱出来。特朗普坚称，他反对的只是非法的西语裔移民。依法移民美国的显然受欢迎。然而，他们真正的吸引力建立在民族主义和民粹主义基础上。他们指出精英阶层的虚伪，在这一点上他们是站得住脚的。卡梅伦曾誓言将每年流入英国的净移民人数控制在10万人以内，但他未能兑现这一承诺。历届美国行政当局都承诺加强边境管控，但搞到最后都宣布大赦。就测试市场行情而言，英国在精英虚伪与民粹主义真诚之间的较量堪称一绝。

Then there is the future of the west. On his UK visit in April, Barack Obama made an eloquent²⁷ pitch for Britain’s role in Europe. He reminded Britons that the vision of a united Europe was conceived by Churchill as a means to prevent a recurrence²⁸ of humanity’s two bloodiest²⁹ wars. There was a grander context, even romance, to the President’s words that Mr Cameron could never emulate³⁰. Britain’s prime minister has spent too long denigrating³¹ Europe — and validating³² the concerns of those against immigration — to make a positive case, which is why he asked Mr Obama to do it for him. It is worth noting that Mr Cameron hired Jim Messina, the manager of Mr Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, to help make his fear-based economic case against Brexit; even the product managers are interchangeable.

还有就是对西方未来的担忧。今年4月访问英国期间，巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)有力捍卫了英国在欧洲的作用。他提醒英国人，欧洲统一的愿景最初是丘吉尔想出来的，为的是防止人类历史上最血腥的两次大战重演。美国总统把自己的演讲放在宏大的背景下，甚至带有一丝浪漫，这是卡梅伦永远模仿不出来的。英国首相用了太长时间诋毁欧洲——并且肯定那些反移民人士的担忧——以至于他无法用“正能量”阐述留欧的逻辑，这就是他为什么请奥巴马出面为他说话。值得注意的是，卡梅伦聘请了奥巴马2012年连任竞选经理吉姆•麦西纳(Jim Messina)，帮他策划反对退欧的基于恐慌的经济理由；美英之间就连“产品经理”也是可以互换的。

Beyond doing a favour for a friend, Mr Obama had larger motives. Washington’s elites rightly fear that Brexit could spark a chain reaction that could lead to the disintegration³³ of the EU. That, in turn, could trigger the collapse³⁴ of the transatlantic alliance. US global power has always been magnified by the strength of its alliances. The self-inflicted isolation of America’s closest European ally could be the start of a great unravelling³⁵.

除了为朋友帮忙，奥巴马还有更大的动机。华盛顿的精英阶层有理由担忧，英国退欧可能引发连锁反应，最终导致欧盟解体。这进而可能引发跨大西洋联盟的解体。美国的全球实力一直得到其强大同盟的放大。作为与美国关系最密切的欧洲盟友，英国自我强加的孤立可能意味着一场大解体的开始。

Here, too, Mr Trump plays the ghost at the banquet. For the first time since Nato was formed, the US is fielding a presidential candidate who would be indifferent to the demise³⁶ of the military alliance. Moreover, Mr Trump stands alone among US public figures in supporting Britain’s exit from the EU. “Oh yeah, I think they should leave,” he said recently. He added that it would be Britain’s decision to make alone. The latter was true enough. But Mr Trump’s insouciance³⁷ crystallised what troubles Washington. There are points in history when all that is solid melts into air. Will 2016 be one of those moments?

在这方面，特朗普同样扮演了宴会上的幽灵的角色。特朗普是自北约成立以来首位对这一军事同盟的存亡漠不关心的总统候选人。此外，在美国的公众人物中，只有特朗普支持英国退出欧盟。特朗普最近称：“噢，是的，我认为他们应该离开。”他补充说，那应该是英国自己的决定。后半句说的没错。但特朗普漫不经心的态度凸显了华盛顿的不安心情。历史上多次出现过貌似坚固的东西一下子烟消云散的时刻。2016年会成为那些时刻之一吗？