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The endless chatter in Washington about "political strategy," Podhorzer believes, has little to do with how change really gets made. "My basic take on politics is that it's all pretty obvious if you don't overthink it or swallow the prevailing frameworks whole," he once wrote. "After that, just relentlessly identify your assumptions and challenge them." Podhorzer applies that approach to everything: when he coached his now adult son's Little League team in the D.C. suburbs, he trained the boys not to swing at most pitches—a tactic that infuriated both their and their opponents' parents, but won the team a series of championships.
波德霍泽认为，华盛顿关于“政治战略”的无休止的讨论，与如何真正实现变革没有多大关系。他曾经写道：“我对政治的基本看法是，如果你不过度思考，或者不全盘接受流行的框架，一切都是显而易见的。”“然后，你要毫不留情地找出你的假设并挑战它们。”波德霍泽把这种方法应用到所有的事情上：当他在华盛顿郊区指导他现在已经成年的儿子的少年棒球联盟球队时，他训练孩子们在大多数投球时不要挥棒——这一策略激怒了他们和对手的父母，但却为球队赢得了一次又一次的冠军。
Trump's election in 2016—credited in part to his unusual strength among the sort of blue collar white voters who once dominated the AFL-CIO—prompted Podhorzer to question his assumptions about voter behavior. He began circulating weekly number-crunching memos to a small circle of allies and hosting strategy sessions in D.C. But when he began to worry about the election itself, he didn't want to seem paranoid. It was only after months of research that he introduced his concerns in his newsletter in October 2019. The usual tools of data, analytics and polling would not be sufficient in a situation where the President himself was trying to disrupt the election, he wrote. "Most of our planning takes us through Election Day," he noted. "But, we are not prepared for the two most likely outcomes"—Trump losing and refusing to concede, and Trump winning the Electoral College (despite losing the popular vote) by corrupting the voting process in key states. "We desperately need to systematically 'red-team' this election so that we can anticipate and plan for the worst we know will be coming our way."
特朗普在2016年的当选——部分归功于他在曾经主宰美国劳工联合会的蓝领白人选民中有着异乎寻常的力量——促使波德霍泽质疑他对选民行为的假设。他开始每周向一小群盟友分发数据分析备忘录，并在华盛顿召开战略会议。但当他开始担心选举本身时，他不想显得偏执。直到几个月的研究后，他才在2019年10月的通讯中提出了自己的担忧。他写道，在总统自己试图扰乱选举的情况下，通常的数据、分析和民调工具是不够的。他说：“我们的大部分计划要持续到大选日。但是，我们还没有为两种最可能的结果做好准备”——特朗普输掉并拒绝认输，以及特朗普通过在关键州破坏投票过程而赢得选举人团(尽管输掉了普选)。“我们迫切需要有系统地‘红队’这次选举，这样我们就可以预测和计划我们知道将会出现的最坏情况。”
It turned out Podhorzer wasn't the only one thinking in these terms. He began to hear from others eager to join forces. The Fight Back Table, a coalition of "resistance" organizations, had begun scenario-planning around the potential for a contested election, gathering liberal activists at the local and national level into what they called the Democracy Defense Coalition. Voting-rights and civilrights organizations were raising alarms. A group of former elected officials was researching emergency powers they feared Trump might exploit. Protect Democracy was assembling a bipartisan election-crisis task force. "It turned out that once you said it out loud, people agreed," Podhorzer says, "and it started building momentum."
事实证明，波德霍泽并不是唯一一个这样想的人。他开始听到其他人渴望联合起来。一个由“抵抗”组织组成的联盟“反击台”已经开始围绕有争议的选举进行前景计划，将地方和国家层面的自由活动人士聚集到他们所谓的“民主防卫联盟”中。投票权和民权组织敲响了警钟。一群前当选官员正在研究他们担心特朗普可能会利用的紧急权力。保护民主正在组建一个两党选举危机特别工作组。“事实证明，一旦你大声说出自己的想法，人们就会同意，”波德霍泽说，“并且开始形成势头。”
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
