时代周刊:揭秘拯救2020年大选的"影子运动秘史"(3)（在线收听）

The democracy campaigners watched with alarm.

民主运动人士警惕地注视着。

"Every week, we felt like we were in a struggle to try to pull off this election without the country going through a real dangerous moment of unraveling,"

“每周，我们都觉得我们在努力赢得这次选举，而不让这个国家经历解体的真正危险时刻，”

says former GOP Representative Zach Wamp, a Trump supporter who helped coordinate a bipartisan election-protection council.

前共和党众议员扎克·万普说，他是特朗普的支持者，曾帮助协调一个两党选举保护委员会。

"We can look back and say this thing went pretty well, but it was not at all clear in September and October that that was going to be the case."

“我们可以回顾过去，说事情进展得很顺利，但在9月和10月，情况是否会如此还完全不清楚。”

This is the inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election, based on access to the group's inner workings,

这是拯救2020年大选阴谋的内幕，依据是该组织的内部运作、

never-before-seen documents and interviews with dozens of those involved from across the political spectrum.

从未公开的文件，以及对来自不同政治派别的数十名参与者的采访。

It is the story of an unprecedented, creative and determined campaign whose success also reveals how close the nation came to disaster.

这是一场史无前例、富有创造力和决心的竞选，它的成功也揭示了这个国家离灾难有多近。

"Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated," says Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan rule-of-law advocacy group.

无党派法治倡导组织“保护民主”的联合创始人伊恩·巴辛表示：“任何试图干涉选举正确结果的尝试都失败了，

"But it's massively important for the country to understand that it didn't happen accidentally. The system didn't work magically. Democracy is not self-executing."

但重要的是要让国家明白这不是偶然发生的。这个系统并没有神奇地发挥作用，民主不会自动执行。”

That's why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream—a well-funded cabal of powerful people,

这就是参与者想要揭露2020年大选秘史的原因。尽管这听起来像是一个偏执的狂热的梦——一个由不同行业和意识形态的权势者组成的资金雄厚的阴谋集团，

ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.

他们在幕后合作，影响人们的看法，改变规则和法律，引导媒体报道，控制信息流。

They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.

他们没有操纵选举，他们在加强防御。

And they believe the public needs to understand the system's fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures.

他们认为，公众需要了解这个体系的脆弱性，以确保美国的民主能够持久。

Sometime in the fall of 2019, Mike Podhorzer became convinced the election was headed for disaster—and determined to protect it.

2019年秋的某个时候，迈克·波德霍泽确信选举将走向灾难，并决心保护它。

This was not his usual purview.

这不是他通常的职权范围。

For nearly a quarter-century, Podhorzer, senior adviser to the president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest union federation, has marshaled the latest tactics and data to help its favored candidates win elections.

近25年来，美国最大的工会联合会劳联产联总统的高级顾问波德霍泽一直在整理最新的策略和数据，以帮助其青睐的候选人赢得选举。

Unassuming and professorial, he isn't the sort of hair-gelled "political strategist" who shows up on cable news.

他谦逊、有学者气息，他不是那种打着发胶出现在有线新闻上的“政治战略家”。

Among Democratic insiders, he's known as the wizard behind some of the biggest advances in political technology in recent decades.

在民主党内部人士中，他被称为近几十年来政治技术一些重大进步背后的巫师。

A group of liberal strategists he brought together in the early 2000s led to the creation of the Analyst Institute, a secretive firm that applies scientific methods to political campaigns.

21世纪初他召集了一群自由派战略家，成立了分析研究所，这是一家将科学方法应用于政治运动的秘密公司。

He was also involved in the founding of Catalist, the flagship progressive data company.

他还参与创办了先进数据旗舰公司Catalist。