NEW YORK –
There is a kind of war underway in the United
States nowadays between fact and fantasy.
President Barack Obama’s re-election marked a victory, limited but
unmistakable, for the cause of fact.But wanting that to be true was not enough for them to make it true. It would be as close to becoming President as Romney would get, and he apparently wanted to enjoy it while he could, however prematurely. Then, on election night, when the television networks projected Romney’s defeat in Ohio and therefore Barack Obama’s re-election, the Romney campaign, in a further denial of fact, refused to accept the result. A very awkward hour passed before he accepted reality and made a gracious concession speech.
The same disregard for reality has been the hallmark not only of the Republican campaign but of the entire Republican Party in recent times. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a report in October showing that the national unemployment rate remained “essentially unchanged at 7.9%,” Republican operatives sought to discredit the highly respected BLS. When polls showed that Romney was falling behind President Barack Obama, they sought to discredit the polls. When the non-partisan Congressional Research Service reported that a Republican tax plan would do nothing to foster economic growth, Republican Senators muscled the CRS into withdrawing its report.
These refusals to accept matters of plain fact reflect a still wider pattern. Increasingly, the Republican Party, once a fairly normal political party, has granted itself a license to live in an alternate reality – a world in which George W. Bush did find the weapons of mass destruction that he had thought were in Iraq; tax cuts eliminate budget deficits; Obama is not only a Muslim but was born in Kenya and thus should be disqualified from the presidency; and global warming is a hoax concocted by a cabal of socialist scientists. (The Democrats, for their part, have had one foot in the camp of unreality as well.)
Of all of the Republicans’ unreal beliefs, their full-throated denial of human-induced climate change was surely the most consequential. After all, if left unchecked, global warming has the potential to degrade and destroy the climactic conditions that underlay and made possible the rise of human civilization over the last ten millennia.
Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, had expressed belief in the reality of global warming. As a presidential candidate, however, he joined the deniers – a switch made clear when he accepted the party’s nomination in Tampa, Florida, in August. “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans,” Romney told the Republican convention, and then paused, with the expectant smile of a comedian waiting for the audience to catch on to the joke.
It did. Laughter broke and built. Romney let it grow, then delivered the punch line: “And to heal the planet.” The crowd cracked up. It was perhaps the most memorable and lamentable moment in a lamentable campaign – a moment that, in the history now to be written of humanity’s effort to preserve a livable planet, is destined for immortal notoriety.
There was an astonishing sequel. Eight weeks later, Hurricane Sandy struck the New Jersey shore and New York City. Its 14-foot surge of seawater was backed by the sea-level rise already caused by a century of global warming, and the storm’s sweep and intensity was fueled by a warming planet’s warmer ocean waters. That tide of reality – what Alexander Solzhenitsyn once called “the pitiless crowbar of events”— burst the closed bubble of Romney’s campaign, its walls breached as decisively as those of lower Manhattan and Far Rockaway.
In the contest between fact and fantasy, fact suddenly had a powerful ally. The political map was subtly but consequentially redrawn. Obama swung into action, now not just a suspect candidate but a trusted president whose services were sorely needed by the battered population of the East Coast. Eight of ten voters, as polls showed, viewed his performance favorably, and many declared that the impression influenced their vote.
In a surprising, politically potent twist, New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie, who had been the keynote speaker at the Republican convention at which Romney had mocked the dangers of global warming, turned out to be one of those impressed with Obama’s performance, and said so publicly.
The American political world – not only Republicans, but also Democrats (albeit to a lesser extent) – had fenced out huge, ominous realities. But those realities, as if listening and responding, entered the fray. They voted early, and they may very well have swayed the outcome. Earth spoke, and Americans, for once, listened.
Jonathan Schell is a Fellow at The Nation Institute and is a visiting fellow at Yale University. He is the author of The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger.
Jonathan Schell: 羅姆尼的現實障礙
紐約—如今的美國存在一場事實和幻想之爭。總統奧巴馬的連任標誌著事實的勝利，儘管有限，但確鑿無疑。
美國總統選戰為我們提供了這場鬥爭的全景。共和黨挑戰者羅姆尼的高級幕僚間產生了一種他將脫穎而出的信念。他們的這種感覺根本沒有民調結果基礎。儘管如此，這種感覺是如此強烈，以至於他們開始稱羅姆尼為“總統先生”。
願望是美好的，但有願望還不足以把這變成現實。羅姆尼離總統寶座只有一步之遙，而他也想享受這種感覺，不管它是多麼不成熟。接著，在選舉之夜，當各大電視網預測羅姆尼將在俄亥俄州敗北、從而奧巴馬將連任時，羅姆尼陣營再次否認事實，拒不接受結果。在經歷了難堪的一小時後，他才接受了現實，擺出一副親和的樣子做了承認失敗的演說。
類似的否認事實不僅成了共和黨陣營的標志，也是近幾年來整個共和黨的特征。當勞工統計局發布的10月報告顯示全國失業率維持“7.9%基本不變”時，共和黨開始炮轟信譽卓著的勞工統計局。當民調顯示羅姆尼落後於總統奧巴馬時，他們炮轟民調結果。當無黨派的國會研究局（Congressional
Research Service，CRS）報告共和黨稅收計劃不能提振經濟增長時，共和黨參議員們強迫CRS收回報告。
這些拒絕接受鐵板一塊的事實反映的是更深層次的模式。共和黨是個再平常不過的政黨，卻日漸把自己當成通往異次元生活的通行証——在這個次元中，小布什確實發現了他認為存在於伊拉克的大規模殺傷性武器﹔減稅消滅了預算赤字﹔奧巴馬不但是穆斯林，還出生於肯尼亞，因此根本沒有資格參選總統﹔而全球變暖是由社會主義科學家炮制出來的騙局。（至於民主黨，也有一隻腳踏進了不現實。）
在共和黨人的所有不現實新年中，言之鑿鑿地否認人類導致的氣候變化是後果最嚴重的一個。畢竟，如果不加注意，氣候變暖可能使過去1萬年孕育了人類文明的氣候條件退化甚至完全毀掉。
作為馬薩諸塞州州長，羅姆尼倒是表現出了對全球變暖現實的信念。但是，作為總統候選人，他加入了否認陣營——這是他8月份在佛羅裡達州坦帕接受黨內提名後做出的改變。“奧巴馬總統承諾採取措施延緩海平面的上升，”羅姆尼在共和黨大會上說，接著他略作停頓，皮笑肉不笑地等待觀眾聽了笑話後的反應。
他成功了。聽眾裝出一陣爆笑。在笑聲中，羅姆尼說出了笑點：“並治愈地球。”聽眾哄堂大笑。這也許是一次可悲的競選活動中最能被人銘記也是最可悲的時刻——在這個人類必須採取措施保証這個宜居星球的歷史階段，這個時刻必將遺臭萬年。
但這個場景還有令人震驚的續集。八周後，颶風桑迪襲擊了新澤西州海岸和紐約市。14英尺的潮涌乘著一個世紀以來全球變暖所造成的海平面上升以及變暖的地球的變暖的海水的東風，留下一地狼藉。這次現實之潮——索爾仁尼琴曾經稱之為“無情的事實撬棍”——戳破了羅姆尼陣營封閉的泡沫，其護牆就像下曼哈頓和法洛克衛（Far
Rockaway）一樣被徹底沖垮。
在事實與幻想之爭中，事實來了一次突然襲擊。政治版圖被微妙但決定性地改寫了。奧巴馬變被動為主動，不再只是一味可堪懷疑的候選人，而是一位值得信任的總統，東部受災人民眼睜睜地盼著他來救自己。民調顯示，八成選民滿意奧巴馬的表現，很多人更是直言這一印象決定他們的選票。
新澤西州州長克裡斯·克裡斯蒂（Chris Christie）做出了出人意料而決定性的政治轉向。他曾是羅姆尼大肆嘲笑全球變暖威脅的民主黨大會的主講發言言，但現在，他也開始欣賞奧巴馬的表現，並公開承認這一點。
美國政治界——不僅是共和黨，也包括民主黨（儘管程度稍淺）——總是對不吉利的現實視而不見。但這些現實就好像看到了這一跡象一般加入了爭論。它們早早地表達了立場，並極有可能左右最後結果。地球在發言，而美國人民在聆聽。