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Another day, another indictment. The latest charges against Donald Trump do not involve paying hush money to a porn star or conspiring to subvert the 2020 election. They appear in a new book which strikes at the heart of the Trump myth: the notion that he is a self-made billionaire who personifies the American dream.
又是一天，又有一项起诉。最新对唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的指控不涉及向色情明星支付封口费或密谋颠覆2020年大选。这些指控出现在一本新书中，直击特朗普神话的核心：他是一个白手起家的亿万富翁，是美国梦的化身。
Lucky Loser, an exhaustive study of Trump’s business record, suggests exactly the opposite. Trump owed everything to his father Fred, one of the country’s top housebuilders who made his fortune in the post-second world war construction boom. With a couple of exceptions, Trump’s own casino and real estate deals veered between indifferent and disastrous.
《幸运失败者》是对特朗普商业记录的详尽研究，结果恰恰相反。特朗普的一切都归功于他的父亲弗雷德，他是美国顶尖的房屋建筑商之一，在二战后的建筑热潮中发家致富。除了几个例外，特朗普自己的赌场和房地产交易在平庸和灾难之间摇摆不定。
In every instance, owning or having an option on trophy assets beat building profitable businesses. Trump was going nowhere fast until he debuted as the blowhard host of NBC’s The Apprentice — a gladiatorial management contest filmed inside his gilded tower on Fifth Avenue. The show skyrocketed in the ratings, providing Trump with a financial lifeline and a platform for his successful campaign for the White House in 2016.
在任何情况下，拥有或拥有奖杯资产的选择权都比建立盈利的企业更有优势。特朗普在担任美国全国广播公司(NBC)《学徒》(The Apprentice)节目的牛皮哄哄的主持人之前，一直一事无成，该节目是在他位于第五大道的镀金大厦内拍摄的一场角斗场式的管理竞赛。该节目收视率一路飙升，为特朗普提供了财政生命线，也为他在2016年成功竞选白宫提供了平台。
Lucky Loser draws heavily on previous exposés by the authors, New York Times journalists Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig. Digging through mountains of tax records, they discovered that Trump paid $750 in federal income tax in 2017, the year he became president. In 2008, he paid no federal income taxes during a year in which he collected $14.8mn from The Apprentice and $18.5mn from celebrity endorsements and licensing deals. In fact, Trump paid no federal income tax in 11 of the 18 years they examined.
《幸运失败者》严重依赖于纽约时报(New York Times)记者拉斯•布埃特纳(Russ Buettner)和苏珊娜•克雷格(Susanne Craig)之前的揭露报道。他们翻阅了大量的税务记录，发现特朗普在2017年成为总统的那一年只缴纳了750美元的联邦所得税。在2008年，他从《学徒》获得1480万美元和从名人代言及授权交易中获得1850万美元的那一年，没有缴纳任何联邦所得税。事实上，在他们调查的18年中，特朗普有11年没有缴纳任何联邦所得税。拉斯-布埃特纳和苏珊娜-克雷格
Buettner and Craig’s work earned them a Pulitzer Prize, along with David Barstow, but the impact on Trump’s fortunes was akin to peanuts bouncing off a rhinoceros hide. He still refused to hand over his tax returns until ordered to do so by the US Supreme Court in 2021. Lucky Loser therefore often has the feel of a rematch, timed to puncture the Republican candidate ahead of the presidential election in November.
布埃特纳和克雷格的工作使他们与大卫•巴斯托(David Barstow)一起获得了普利策奖(Pulitzer Prize)，但对特朗普的命运影响微乎其微，就像花生米弹在犀牛皮上一样。直到2021年美国最高法院下令，他才同意交出他的税务申报表。因此，《幸运的失败者》常常给人一种重赛的感觉，旨在削弱11月总统选举之前的共和党候选人的地位。
There are sharper portraits of Trump, the relentless self-promoter who combines animal cunning with whiny narcissism. By far the best is Too Much and Never Enough, written by his niece Mary Trump, a trained psychologist. The story of Trump allegedly pushing aside his alcoholic older brother Freddie Jr — Mary’s father — to take over the Trump real estate empire is a Cain and Abel drama. In Lucky Loser, it comes across a little tame.
有更尖锐的特朗普肖像，这个无情的自我推销者将动物般的狡猾与牢骚满腹的自恋结合在一起。迄今为止，最好的作品是他的侄女玛丽•特朗普(Mary Trump)写的《太多和永远不够》，她是一位受过训练的心理学家。特朗普据称推开了他酗酒的哥哥弗雷德•特朗普二世，接管了特朗普房地产帝国的故事就像是一出该隐和亚伯的戏剧。在《幸运失败者》中，这个故事显得有点温和。
In their opening foray, Buettner and Craig blame Trump’s grip on the popular imagination on Americans’ awe of celebrity. “Our tendency to conflate the trappings of wealth with expertise and ability. Our eagerness to believe people of apparent status will not lie to us. Our inability to distinguish the fruits of hard work from those of sheer luck.”
在他们的首次尝试中，布埃特纳和克雷格将特朗普在大众想象中的影响归咎于美国人对名人的敬畏。“我们倾向于将财富的象征与专业知识和能力混为一谈。我们渴望相信那些表面上有地位的人不会对我们撒谎。我们无法区分辛勤工作的成果和纯粹的运气所带来的成果。”
A more uncomfortable conclusion is that the US tax system is rigged in favour of privileged insiders like Trump. True, the authors show how Fred Trump benefited from the favourable mortgage terms that the New Deal-era Federal Housing Administration provided to developers. They also lay out the tax dodges that allowed Fred to funnel millions to his princeling son. Trump has been equally adept in gaming the system.
一个更令人不安的结论是，美国的税收制度被操纵，有利于像特朗普这样的特权内部人士。诚然，作者展示了弗雷德•特朗普(Fred Trump)如何从新政时期美国联邦住房管理局(Federal Housing Administration)向开发商提供的优惠抵押贷款条件中获益。他们还揭示了弗雷德通过避税手段将数百万美元转给他的太子。特朗普在利用这个系统进行操纵方面同样熟练。
Lucky Loser shows how media credulousness fuelled Trump’s rise. Time and again, journalists swallowed his claims of huge wealth. Fawning profiles appeared regularly in print and on air. The New York Times itself was hardly immune, but even Mike Wallace of CBS’s 60 Minutes, supposedly the toughest interviewer on the block, swooned in Trump’s presence.
《幸运失败者》展示了媒体的轻信如何助长了特朗普的崛起。记者们一次又一次地相信了他宣称的巨额财富。谄媚的报道经常出现在报刊和广播中。纽约时报本身也难以幸免，但即使是被誉为最严厉采访者的哥伦比亚广播公司(CBS)60分钟节目主持人迈克•华莱士(Mike Wallace)在特朗普面前也陶醉了。
The New York banks were equally gullible, lending freely on Trump’s personal guarantees. Wall Street only wised up after Trump’s casino empire collapsed in the mid-1990s, forcing a wholesale disposal of assets. Yet Trump escaped personal bankruptcy, allowing him to make a comeback as a reality TV star.
纽约的银行同样轻信了特朗普的个人担保，慷慨地借款。直到20世纪90年代中期，特朗普的赌场帝国崩溃，迫使进行大规模资产处置，华尔街才幡然醒悟。然而，特朗普成功逃脱个人破产，使他得以以真人秀明星的身份东山再起。
Unlike Trump’s gaudy casinos in Atlantic City, The Apprentice was a money gusher, thanks to product placement. Burger King, Domino’s, General Motors, Unilever — all the top consumer product companies appeared on the show. At one point, Trump was earning $1mn an episode from licensing and sponsorship deals.
与特朗普在大西洋城(Atlantic City)的华丽赌场不同，《学徒》通过产品植入成为了一座金矿。汉堡王(Burger King)、多米诺、通用汽车(General Motors)、联合利华等顶级消费品公司都在节目中露面。曾经，特朗普每集从授权和赞助交易中赚取100万美元。
In the show, the winning apprentice would receive $250,000 and a year’s placement in the Trump organisation. But once again, as the authors show, the image of success was an illusion. The reality was a skewed selection process and a capricious, bullying host.
在节目中，获胜的学徒将获得25万美元，并在特朗普组织中任职一年。但正如作者所展示的那样，成功的形象是一种幻觉。现实是一个扭曲的选拔过程和一个反复无常、欺凌的主持人。
As Jeff Zucker, boss of NBC News and Entertainment, admitted: “You were casting an actor . . . He was playing a part. We knew that. It’s called reality television, but it’s never real, per se.”
正如美国全国广播公司新闻和娱乐的老板杰夫•扎克(Jeff Zucker)承认的那样：“你在挑选一个演员……他在扮演一个角色。我们知道这一点。它被称为真人秀，但从本质上说它从来都不是真实的。”
Until it was real. Donald Trump really did become the 45th US president. He really is running again for the White House. And if he makes it to the top again, somebody should write another book about the enablers who helped him on his way up, the people who looked away from the lies, and the system that allowed him to lead such a charmed life.
直到它变成了现实。唐纳德•特朗普真的成为了第45任美国总统。他真的再次竞选白宫。如果他再次登顶，应该有人写一本书，讲述那些帮助他一路上升的助推者、那些对谎言视而不见的人，以及允许他过上如此幸运生活的体制。
Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success by Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig Bodley Head £25/Penguin Press $35, 528 pages
《幸运失败者：唐纳德•特朗普如何挥霍了父亲的财富并创造了成功的幻象》由拉斯•布埃特纳和苏珊娜•克雷格著，Bodley Head出版社25英镑/企鹅出版社(Penguin Press)35美元，528页。
Lionel Barber, a former editor of the FT, is author of ‘Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son’
莱昂内尔•巴伯(Lionel Barber)，前英国《金融时报》主编，是《赌徒：日本孙正义的狂野之旅》一书的作者
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