SOME YEARS it is hard to identify the main event, much less sum it up in a word. This is not the problem in 2024; the return of Donald Trump to the White House after a four-year absence is consequential not only for the world’s most powerful country but also for its neighbours and everywhere else. Which word can capture the mix of surprise, excitement and trepidation people feel as the MAGA movement returns to power?
有些年来，很难确定主要事件，更不用说用一句话来概括了。 2024 年这不是问题；唐纳德 · 特朗普在缺席四年后重返白宫，不仅对这个世界上最强大的国家，而且对它的邻国和其他地方都具有重要意义。当 MAGA 运动重新崛起时，哪个词可以形容人们的惊讶、兴奋和恐惧？
First, a counterfactual. Had Kamala Harris won, The Economist would have had a different shortlist for its annual “word of the year”. Her campaign was described as one of “vibes”, rather than policy. Her appeal to the young was captured in “brat” (youth slang for “a little messy and likes to party”); it was Charli XCX, a British pop star, who offered Ms Harris that compliment. But Ms Harris did not win, and so “brat” is unlikely to go down in history except as the answer to a trivia question.
首先，反事实。如果卡玛拉 · 哈里斯获胜， 《经济学人》的年度 “年度词汇” 将会有一个不同的候选名单。她的竞选活动被描述为一种“氛围”，而不是政策。她对年轻人的吸引力体现在“brat”（年轻人俚语，意思是“有点乱，喜欢聚会”）；英国流行歌星查莉 ·XCX (Charli XCX) 向哈里斯女士发出了这样的赞美。但哈里斯女士没有获胜，因此 “小子” 不太可能被载入史册，除非作为一个琐事问题的答案。
For the year’s defining word, it helps to look back—a long way. English has a host of political terms derived from Greek, because it got a lot of its political thinking from the likes of Plato and Aristotle. So if you go through the lexicon (itself Greek), a few roots abound. Arche (ruler), for example, is found in monarchy, oligarchy and anarchy (the rule of one, the few and none, respectively).
对于这一年的定义词来说，回顾过去会有所帮助——漫长的道路。英语有许多源自希腊语的政治术语，因为它从柏拉图和亚里士多德等人那里获得了很多政治思想。因此，如果你浏览一下词典（希腊语本身），就会发现很多词根。例如， Arche （统治者）存在于君主制、寡头制和无政府制（分别是一人统治、少数人统治和无人统治）中。
Greek has another root for “rule”, kratia, which is even more common. It features in democracy, aristocracy, gerontocracy, theocracy and plutocracy, as well as meritocracy (a modern coinage for which Alan Fox, a British sociologist, married a Latin root with a Greek one in 1956). The Oxford English Dictionary is also full of rarer species such as ochlocracy (rule by the mob), gynaecocracy (rule by women) and thalassocracy (mastery of the seas).
希腊语还有另一个表示 “规则” 的词根kratia ，这个词更为常见。它的特征包括民主制、贵族制、老年制、神权制和财阀制，以及贤能制（英国社会学家艾伦 · 福克斯于 1956 年将拉丁词根与希腊词根结合起来的一种现代造词）。 《牛津英语词典》还充满了一些稀有词，例如 ochlocracy（暴民统治）、gynaecracy（女性统治）和 thalassocracy（海洋统治）。
Two other “-cracy” words seem appropriate in this election year. One is theatrocracy, or rule by theatre-goers. This sounds as if it might refer to dominance by the media elites writing for the culture sections of newspapers. But the word has its origins in Plato, who described people skilled in fanning the emotions of the crowd at a theatre into a powerful political force. This might, in hindsight, have been a good word of the year for 2016, when a former reality-TV star with a talent for working the crowd was first elected president.
另外两个 “-cracy” 一词似乎适合这个选举年。一是戏剧统治，即由观众统治。这听起来似乎可能指的是为报纸文化版块撰稿的媒体精英的主导地位。但这个词起源于柏拉图，他描述了那些善于将剧院观众的情绪煽动成强大政治力量的人。事后看来，这可能是 2016 年的年度好词，当时一位具有与群众打交道的天赋的前真人秀明星首次当选总统。
After Mr Trump was re-elected on November 5th, the world watched anxiously as he began filling top jobs. Some picks, such as the sensible Susie Wiles for chief of staff and Marco Rubio, a long-serving senator, for secretary of state, were qualified and competent. But a flurry of nominations in the week ending November 15th led to a spike in people looking up another “-cracy” word on Google.
特朗普于 11 月 5 日再次当选后，全世界都焦急地注视着他开始填补高层职位。一些人选，例如明智的苏西 · 威尔斯（Susie Wiles）担任幕僚长，以及长期任职的参议员马可 · 卢比奥（Marco Rubio）担任国务卿，都是合格且有能力的。但截至 11 月 15 日的一周内，一系列提名导致人们在谷歌上查找另一个 “-cracy” 一词的人数激增。
Matt Gaetz, accused of sex and drug crimes and the subject of a congressional ethics investigation, was nominated to be the country’s highest law-enforcement officer. Robert F. Kennedy junior, a man with crackpot views on vaccines, was to be secretary of health. Tulsi Gabbard, a conspiracy theorist with nice things to say about the despots of Syria and Russia, was to run America’s intelligence services. And Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host sporting tattoos associated with the far right (and who had been accused of sexual assault) was tapped as defence secretary.
马特 · 盖茨被指控犯有性犯罪和毒品犯罪，并成为国会道德调查的对象，他被提名为该国最高执法官员。小罗伯特 ·F· 肯尼迪（Robert F. Kennedy）将担任卫生部长，他对疫苗有着疯狂的看法。图尔西 · 加巴德（Tulsi Gabbard ）是一位阴谋论者，对叙利亚和俄罗斯的暴君有好话可说，他将负责美国的情报部门。福克斯新闻主持人皮特 · 赫格斯（Pete Hegseth ）被任命为国防部长，他的纹身与极右翼有关（并被指控性侵犯）。
So the word everyone was Googling was kakistocracy: the rule of the worst. The first root, kakos, is found in few others in English. “Kakistocracy” is not found in ancient sources; it seems to have been coined in English as an intentional antonym to aristocracy, originally “rule by the best”. Having spiked on Google Trends the day after Mr Trump’s election, kakistocracy jumped a second time in the wake of these nominations. Searches surged a third time on November 21st, when Mr Gaetz announced that he would withdraw from consideration for attorney-general, suggesting that he was seen as the worst of the worst. The term was particularly popular in Democratic strongholds such as Oregon, Massachusetts and Minnesota.
所以大家在谷歌上搜索到的词是 kakistocracy：最坏的统治。第一个词根kakos在其他英语中很少见。在古代资料中并没有发现 “恶人统治”；它似乎是英语中特意创造的，作为贵族制的反义词，最初是 “由最好的人统治”。特朗普当选后的第二天，“恶人统治” 在谷歌趋势上飙升，在这些提名之后，“恶人统治” 的排名再次飙升。 11 月 21 日，盖茨宣布不再考虑担任司法部长，这表明他被视为最糟糕的人，搜索量第三次飙升。这个词在俄勒冈州、马萨诸塞州和明尼苏达州等民主党据点特别受欢迎。
Much remains to be seen about Mr Trump’s new kratia. Last time round he seemed to fire more officials than most presidents have trips on Air Force One. (Many then became outspoken critics.) This time, though, he has chosen his people for their loyalty above all. And many of his supporters are delighted, seeing in his appointments a wrecking crew to pull down a deep state they loathe.
特朗普的新kratia仍有很多待观察。上一次，他解雇的官员数量似乎比大多数总统乘坐空军一号的次数还要多。 （许多人随后成为直言不讳的批评者。）但这一次，他选择他的人民首先是因为他们的忠诚。他的许多支持者都很高兴，因为在他的任命中看到了一支破坏队伍正在推翻他们所厌恶的深层政府。
Kakistocracy has the crisp, hard sounds of glass breaking. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on whether you think the glass had it coming. But kakistocracy’s snappy encapsulation of the fears of half of America and much of the world makes it our word of the year.
恶人统治会发出玻璃破碎时发出的清脆而刺耳的声音。这是好事还是坏事取决于你是否认为玻璃会带来它。但 “恶人统治” 迅速概括了半个美国和世界大部分地区的恐惧，使其成为我们的年度词汇。
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