选民如何失去对丑闻的厌恶感

How Voters Lost Their Aversion to Scandal
作者:David A. Graham    发布时间:2025-07-04 14:58:57    浏览次数:0
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
这是《大西洋日报》(Atlantic Daily)的版本,该新闻通讯可以指导您了解当今最大的故事,可帮助您发现新的想法,并推荐最好的文化。在这里注册。

Jessica Ramos, a Democrat running for mayor of New York, has had scathing words for Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who is also running for mayor. In 2021, the state senator called on Cuomo to resign or be impeached after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment (he denies wrongdoing); the New York state attorney general also found that his administration had undercounted COVID deaths in nursing homes.
杰西卡·拉莫斯(Jessica Ramos)是纽约市长的民主党人,他为前州长安德鲁·库莫(Andrew Cuomo)施加严厉的言论,他也在竞选市长。2021年,州参议员呼吁库莫(Cuomo)辞职或在多名妇女指控他性骚扰后辞职或弹each(他否认不当行为);纽约州总检察长还发现,他的政府削弱了疗养院中的共同死亡。

On the campaign trail this year, Ramos called Cuomo a “corrupt egomaniac” and a “remorseless bully.” She said, “I wish I lived in a city where voters cared about women getting harassed.” She also used the scandal to question his acuity: “I imagine having to resign in disgrace must have really taken a toll on, at the very least, at the very least, his ego, but most certainly his mental health,” Ramos said, adding that the city could not “afford a Joe Biden moment.”
在今年的竞选活动中,拉莫斯称库莫为“腐败的狂热者”和“无罪的恶霸”。她说:“我希望我住在一个关心妇女受到骚扰的城市。”她还利用丑闻来质疑他的敏锐度:“我想必须在耻辱中辞职,至少至少至少是他的自我,但最肯定的是他的心理健康,”拉莫斯说,他补充说,这座城市不能“负担得起乔·比顿的时刻。”

This made it surprising when, earlier this month, Ramos “cross-endorsed” Cuomo in the city’s ranked-choice voting system. (My colleague Annie Lowrey recently detailed the complicated system.)
当本月早些时候,拉莫斯在该市排名选择的投票系统中“交叉登记”的库莫时,这使这令人惊讶。(我的同事安妮·洛瑞(Annie Lowrey)最近详细介绍了复杂的系统。)

“We need serious governing. We need delivery over dogma. Knowing how to govern matters, and that’s why I’m endorsing Andrew Cuomo for mayor today,” Ramos said at a joint rally with Cuomo. Making clear that this was a swipe at the leftist candidate Zohran Mamdani, she added that only one of the mayoral candidates has the “experience, toughness, and the knowledge to lead New York for what’s about to come.” Ramos is hardly alone: Politico found that more than 40 percent of Cuomo’s top endorsements by elected officials in the mayoral race came from people who publicly condemned him in 2021.
拉莫斯在与库莫(Cuomo)的联合集会上说:“我们需要认真的管理。我们需要对教条进行交付。知道如何处理事情,这就是为什么我今天认可安德鲁·库莫(Andrew Cuomo)为市长。”她说,这是对左派候选人Zohran Mamdani的刷新,她补充说,只有一名市长候选人具有“经验,韧性和知识,可以带领纽约来实现纽约”。拉莫斯几乎不是一个人。

Voting in the Democratic mayoral primary ends today, and if the polls are right, Cuomo and Mamdani are the likely winners. The ranked-choice voting system means that the outcome is difficult to predict; Cuomo has led most polls, though an Emerson College poll released yesterday suggests that Mamdani could pull ahead once voters’ downballot choices are counted.
当今民主党市长的主要目的是投票,如果民意调查是正确的,库莫和曼达尼可能是赢家。排名选择的投票系统意味着结果很难预测;库莫(Cuomo)领导了大多数民意调查,尽管艾默生学院(Emerson College)昨天发布的一项民意调查表明,一旦计算了选民的唐巴洛特(Downballot)选择,玛姆达尼(Mamdani)就可以提前进步。

Cuomo’s strong position is a reminder that this is, for better or worse—almost certainly for worse—a golden age for comebacks. President Donald Trump is only the most blatant example. This has led journalists and political scientists to wonder whether scandals even matter anymore, or to bluntly assert that they don’t. Such despondency is understandable, but the situation is somewhat more nuanced. Where major scandals used to seem like simple disqualifiers, ending or thwarting many careers, voters and politicians now treat the taint of scandal as just another factor in a cost-benefit analysis.
库莫(Cuomo)的强大立场提醒人们,无论好坏,这都是卷土重来的黄金时代。唐纳德·特朗普总统只是最公然的例子。这使记者和政治科学家怀疑丑闻是否甚至不再重要,还是直言不讳地断言他们不再重要。这种沮丧是可以理解的,但是情况有些细微。在过去的主要丑闻似乎是简单的取消资格的地方,结束或挫败了许多职业,选民和政客现在将丑闻的污点视为成本效益分析中的另一个因素。

Cuomo’s story illustrates how this has happened. The first relevant dynamic is a shift in how the public views sex scandals. Starting with President Bill Clinton, politicians realized that they could gut out a scandal rather than step down, a path since followed by Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, Trump, and others. The #MeToo movement complicated that: Consensual-sex scandals might be survivable, but harassment and assault became grounds for banishment. Cuomo was never convicted in a criminal court (the only charge filed against him was dismissed in 2022), but an investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James found that “Governor Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state employees in violation of both federal and state laws.” (Cuomo has admitted to instances that were “misinterpreted as unwanted flirtation," but continues to deny wrongdoing.)
Cuomo的故事说明了这是如何发生的。第一个相关的动态是公众对性丑闻的看法转变。从总统比尔·克林顿(Bill Clinton)开始,政客们意识到他们可以淘汰丑闻而不是下台,这是路易斯安那州,南卡罗来纳州州长马克·桑福德(Mark Sanford),特朗普和其他人的参议员戴维·维特(David Vitter)。#MeToo运动复杂化:共识 - 性丑闻可能可以生存,但骚扰和攻击成为驱逐的理由。库莫从未在刑事法院被定罪(对他提起的唯一指控在2022年被驳回),但是纽约检察长莱蒂蒂亚·詹姆斯(Letitia James)的调查发现,“州长库莫(Cuomo)违反了联邦和州法律,对现任和前州雇员进行了性骚扰。”(Cuomo已承认“被误解为不必要的调情”的实例,但仍在继续否认不法行为。)

Much has changed in four years. In The New Yorker last week, Alexis Okeowo profiled Tina Johnson, one of the women who accused the Alabama Republican Roy Moore, then a Senate candidate, of sexual assault in 2017 but who now feels forgotten. (Moore has denied the allegations and is suing Johnson and other accusers.) “The #MeToo movement had created a sense of immense possibility for survivors of sexual violence. But, in time, that sense seemed to fade,” Okeowo writes. “A general fatigue with ‘cancellation’ took hold, and conservative media outlets and politicians weaponized this weariness against the movement.” Cuomo didn’t just ride that wave: He participated in it, launching a podcast to complain about cancel culture and paint himself as a victim.
四年来发生了很多变化。在上周的《纽约客》中,亚历克西斯·奥基沃(Alexis Okeowo)介绍了蒂娜·约翰逊(Tina Johnson),他是指控阿拉巴马州共和党人罗伊·摩尔(Roy Moore),当时是参议院候选人,在2017年进行了性侵犯,但现在感到被遗忘。(摩尔否认了这些指控,并起诉了约翰逊和其他指控者。)“ #MeToo运动为性暴力幸存者带来了极大的可能性。但是,随着时间的流逝,这种感觉似乎逐渐消失,” Okeowo写道。“'取消'的普遍疲劳被弥补了,保守的媒体和政客将这种疲倦武器抗击了这一运动。”Cuomo不仅乘浪潮:他参加了这一浪潮,推出了一个播客,以抱怨取消文化并将自己描绘成受害者。

Second, in a perverse way, Cuomo likely benefited from the sheer number of accusations against him, as well as the nursing-home scandal. A 2021 paper by the political scientists Steven P. Nawara and Mandi Bailey, based on a survey experiment, found that although scandals exact a toll on candidates, multiple scandals don’t hurt them more, because the “cognitive load” required of voters to process additional stories is too great. “This finding is troubling from a perspective of democratic accountability, as it suggests voters are either incapable or unwilling to punish politicians involved in multiple instances of wrongdoing beyond the initial hit that those candidates take to their evaluations after a single scandal,” they wrote.
其次,以一种不正当的方式,Cuomo可能受益于针对他的指控,以及哺乳所在的丑闻。政治科学家史蒂文·纳瓦拉(Steven P. Nawara)和曼迪·贝利(Mandi Bailey)的一份2021年的论文基于一项调查实验,发现尽管丑闻对候选人造成了损失,但多个丑闻并不会更伤害他们,因为选民处理其他故事所需的“认知负担”太好了。他们写道:“从民主问责制的角度来看,这一发现令人不安,因为这表明选民无法或不愿意惩罚参与多个不法行为的政治家,超过这些候选人在一次丑闻后对他们进行评估的最初打击之外。”

A third factor is the polarized, partisan landscape of politics today. Many partisans feel that every election is not just important but existential—if their side loses, they may also lose their way of life. (They aren’t necessarily wrong!) You may be more willing to vote for a candidate you dislike if you believe they are more “electable,” or if you find their rival’s worldview not just worse but also unacceptable. New York’s Democratic primary is an intraparty affair, but it is strongly polarized—for a sense of this, see this New York Times rundown of celebrity ballot rankings, which shows a Cuomo faction and a Mamdani/Never Cuomo faction, including most of the other candidates, in various ranked orders. Or look at Ramos’s endorsement, in which she doesn’t absolve Cuomo but voices a fear that only he can effectively protect the city from Trump’s wrath. Other reluctant Cuomo backers have cited Mamdani’s leftist politics or inexperience as their motivation.
第三个因素是当今政治的两极分化的党派景观。许多游击队认为每次选举不仅重要,而且存在生存 - 如果他们的一方失去,他们也可能会失去生活方式。(他们不一定是错误的!)如果您认为他们更“可以选举”,或者如果您发现他们的竞争对手的世界观不仅更糟,而且不可接受,您可能会更愿意为您不喜欢的候选人投票。纽约的民主党初选是一项爆发事件,但它是强烈两极分化的 - 对于这种感觉,请参阅《纽约时报》的名人投票排名的衰落,它显示了一个Cuomo派系和Mamdani/Never Cuomo派系,包括其他大多数其他候选人,包括各种排名。或者看拉莫斯的认可,在这种情况下,她没有免除库莫,但担心只有他才能有效地保护这座城市免受特朗普的愤怒。其他不情愿的Cuomo支持者将Mamdani的左派政治或不经验视为他们的动力。

Trump embodies these dynamics just as much as Cuomo does. His misdeeds instigated #MeToo, and later, he was a beneficiary of its fade; he is embroiled in so many scandals that hardly anyone can keep them all in mind, and his political rise has both encouraged and been fueled by hyperpartisan polarization. Various things should have disqualified Trump from a return to the White House—most notable, his attempt to steal the 2020 election—but saying that the scandals didn’t hurt him is too nihilistic. The Times’ Nate Cohn has argued that given voter dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden and the economy, Republicans might have done better in 2024 had they not been weighed down by Trump.
特朗普与库莫一样体现了这些动态。他的不当行为煽动了#MeToo,后来他是其淡出的受益者。他陷入了如此多的丑闻中,几乎没有人能牢记所有丑闻,而他的政治崛起既鼓励和助长了党派两极分化。各种各样的事情应该使特朗普从返回白宫的返回(最值得注意的是,他试图窃取2020年大选)的资格,但说丑闻并没有伤害他的企图是虚无的。《泰晤士报》的内特·科恩(Nate Cohn)辩称,如果选民对乔·拜登(Joe Biden)总统和经济不满意,共和党人在2024年没有被特朗普(Trump)权衡而做得更好。

The fact that scandals can still hurt a flawed politician, as part of a broader consideration of pluses and minuses, is reassuring. Even so, one can imagine a version of American politics in which voters feel that they can hold their leaders to an even higher moral standard.
作为更广泛考虑的罪魁祸首和缺点的一部分,丑闻仍然可能伤害有缺陷的政治家,这一事实令人放心。即便如此,人们也可以想象一种美国政治版本,选民认为他们可以使领导人保持更高的道德标准。

Related:
有关的:

Here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
这是来自大西洋的四个新故事:

Today’s News
今天的新闻

President Donald Trump admonished Iran and Israel for launching attacks after he announced an end to their fighting last night. He added that the cease-fire remains “in effect.” An initial U.S. assessment found that the American strikes that hit Iran’s nuclear facilities did not collapse their underground buildings and set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months, according to officials. Senator Bill Cassidy, the chair of the Senate health committee, said yesterday that many appointees to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine-advisory panel lack experience.
唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)总统在昨晚宣布结束战斗后发动袭击,告知伊朗和以色列。他补充说,停火仍然“有效”。据官员们,美国最初的评估发现,袭击伊朗核设施的美国罢工并没有倒塌其地下建筑物,并使伊朗的核计划仅几个月。参议院卫生委员会主席比尔·卡西迪(Bill Cassidy)昨天表示,许多任命卫生部长罗伯特·肯尼迪(Robert F.

Evening Read
晚上阅读

Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: CoreDesignKEY / Getty.
大西洋的插图。资料来源:CoredSignKey / Getty。

The Computer-Science Bubble Is Bursting
计算机科学泡沫正在破裂

By Rose Horowitch
罗斯·霍洛维奇(Rose Horowitch)

The job of the future might already be past its prime. For years, young people seeking a lucrative career were urged to go all in on computer science. From 2005 to 2023, the number of comp-sci majors in the United States quadrupled. All of which makes the latest batch of numbers so startling.
未来的工作可能已经超过了它的主要原因。多年来,敦促寻求有利可图的职业的年轻人全力参与计算机科学。从2005年到2023年,美国的COMP-SCI专业人数三倍。所有这些都使最新的数字令人震惊。

Read the full article.
阅读全文。

More From The Atlantic
来自大西洋的更多

Culture Break
文化中断

Miya Mizuno / Sony Pictures Entertainment
Miya Mizuno / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Watch. The 2002 film 28 Days Later messed with the zombie-movie formula; 28 Years Later (out now in theaters) takes it even further, Shirley Li writes.
手表。28天后,2002年的电影与僵尸电影的配方混为一谈。雪莉·李(Shirley Li)写道,28年后(现在在剧院出发)将其进一步发展。

Read. Fiction is often pushed on allegedly reluctant men as a machine for empathy. “I read it for a different reason,” Jeremy Gordon writes.
读。通常将小说推向据称勉强的人作为同理心的机器。杰里米·戈登(Jeremy Gordon)写道:“我读它是出于不同的原因。”

Play our daily crossword.
播放我们的每日填字游戏。

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.
斯蒂芬妮·拜(Stephanie Bai)为该新闻通讯做出了贡献。

Explore all of our newsletters here.
在这里探索我们所有的新闻通讯。

最新文章

热门文章