Immediately after Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, I urged Israel to think about how to respond by asking itself one question: What does your worst enemy want you to do? Then do the opposite. Iran and Hamas wanted Israel to rush headlong into Gaza — without any plan or Palestinian partner for the morning after — and unfortunately, Israel did just that.

去年10月7日哈马斯入侵以色列后，我立即敦促以色列在思考如何应对时问自己一个问题：你最大的敌人希望你做什么？然后做相反的事。伊朗和哈马斯希望以色列一头扎进加沙——没有任何计划，没有能协助善后的巴勒斯坦合作方——不幸的是，以色列就是这么做的。

At this moment of incredible importance for America and the Democratic Party, I would urge President Biden, his family and his party’s leadership to ask the same question: What does your worst enemy, Donald Trump, want you to do now? Then do the opposite.

在这个对美国和民主党至关重要的时刻，我想敦促拜登总统、他的家人和他所在政党的领导层提出同样的问题：你们最大的敌人唐纳德·特朗普现在希望你们做什么？然后做相反的事。

Trump is salivating at the prospect of Biden staying in the presidential race so he can pummel him from now until Election Day with 15-second television and radio ads — not to mention memes on social media — of Biden’s incoherent responses in last week’s debate, each ad asking: Is this the man you want answering the phone at 3 a.m. if the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians attack us?

特朗普渴盼着拜登能继续参加大选。这样他就可以从现在起到选举日，每天用15秒钟的电视和广播广告——当然还有社交媒体上的米姆——围绕拜登上周辩论时语无伦次的表现狠狠地打击他，每则广告都会问：“如果俄罗斯人、中国人或伊朗人攻击我们，你希望在凌晨三点接听电话的是这个人吗？”

That is a campaign the Trump G.O.P. cult is surely confident it can win. I suspect that the cultists have known all along that the only reason that Trump was leading in many key polls was so many potential Biden voters were not worried about price inflation; they were worried about age inflation — Biden’s. And if the Republicans could make that the issue, the election would fall into their laps.

这将是特朗普-共和党邪教绝对有信心赢得的竞选。我怀疑，邪教分子一直都知道，特朗普在许多关键民调中领先的唯一原因是，拜登的许多潜在选民担心的不是物价上涨，而是年龄上涨——拜登的年龄。如果共和党能把这个变成问题所在，大选胜利就会落入他们手中。

So, what keeps Trump up at 3 a.m.? My guess is a scenario where Biden turns to his family and his top advisers and pulls out a line from the musical “Hamilton”:

那么，什么会让特朗普凌晨三点还睡不着呢？我的猜测是出现这个场景：拜登向他的家人和高级顾问求助，并引用音乐剧《汉密尔顿》（Hamilton）中的一句台词：

 乔治·华盛顿：我要辞职了。我不会竞选总统。

 亚历山大·汉密尔顿：对不起，什么？

 华盛顿：最后一次，放松点，跟我喝一杯。最后一次。我们今晚休息一下。然后我们将教会他们如何说再见。

Yes, what Trump fears most right now is that Biden will teach the country how to say goodbye.

是的，特朗普现在最担心的是拜登会教这个国家如何说再见。

He fears that Biden will demonstrate the difference between a leader and a party who put the country first and a leader and a party who put themselves first, namely Trump and the Republicans who enable him despite knowing how many of Trump’s former advisers say he is unfit for office, despite knowing that Trump tried to overturn the last election, despite knowing that Trump has articulated no real plan for the country’s future other than “retribution” against all who crossed him and his followers.

他担心拜登会展现把国家放在第一位的领导人和政党与把自己放在第一位的领导人和政党——特朗普和支持他的共和党人——之间的区别。尽管这些共和党人知道特朗普的许多前顾问都说他不适合担任公职，尽管他们知道特朗普试图推翻上次大选，尽管他们知道，特朗普除了对所有反对他和他的追随者的人进行“报复”之外，并没有为国家的未来制定真正的计划。

How might Biden do what is best for the country and worst for Trump — a small man at a big time who is so unwilling to say goodbye that he will not even admit he lost the election in 2020 fair and square? Not by scrambling to shift a few panicky donors to his side to tough it out until November, insisting that he just had one bad debate night. And not by daring the party to remove him. He should elevate himself and the party above the whole fray.

特朗普是一个在大时代里不愿意说再见，甚至不愿承认自己在2020年公平公正地输掉了大选的小人。拜登如何才能做到对国家最有利、对特朗普最不利？答案不是手忙脚乱地把一些慌乱的捐款人争取到自己一边，硬撑到11月，坚称自己只是在一个辩论之夜表现不佳。也不是挑战民主党，看它敢不敢罢免自己。他应该把自己和党提升到整个纷争之上。

That would entail declaring that he will release the delegates who vowed to vote for his nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August and work with the party to set up an orderly process between now and then for the next generation of Democratic candidates to make their cases to the public, and for the convention delegates to choose a new nominee. (By the way, a convention vote is how Lincoln and both Roosevelts got nominated — and that worked out pretty well for the country.)

这就意味着，他应宣布放弃那些已做出承诺的代表的支持——他们将在8月芝加哥民主党全国代表大会上投票使他成为提名人——并与民主党合作，立即开始建立一个有序的程序，让下一代民主党候选人向公众阐述自己的立场，最终由大会代表选出新的提名人。(顺便提一下，林肯总统和两位罗斯福总统都是通过大会投票获得提名的——到头来都给这个国家带来了相当不错的结果）。

Biden could, if he wishes, endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, or he could remain neutral. But he should make clear that the nomination must be decided by an open competition. For the six weeks leading up to the convention and at the convention itself, everyone in America will be listening closely as the best of the next generation of Democrats present a hopeful vision for the country. What a contrast with a Republican convention whose only platform is the whims of their dear leader. Will it be messy? Sure, it will. But every alternative is messy now.

如果他愿意的话，拜登可以选择支持副总统卡马拉·哈里斯，也可以保持中立。但他应该明确表示，提名必须通过公开竞争来决定。在民主党大会召开前的六周以及大会召开的时候，美国每个人都将密切关注下一代民主党人中最优秀的人为国家提出的充满希望的愿景。这将与共和党大会形成鲜明对比，后者的唯一纲领就是他们亲爱的领导人的突发奇想。到时候会很混乱吗？当然会。但现在每个替代方案都很混乱。

Biden could add that once an alternative Democratic ticket is nominated, he will use his bully pulpit — and the credibility and admiration that this gesture will surely earn him from Americans of all political stripes — to ensure that they defeat Trump.

拜登可以补充说，一旦民主党的替代候选人获得提名，他将利用他的声望和地位——以及这一举动必将为他赢得的所有政治派别的美国人的赞赏和钦佩——确保他们击败特朗普。

Instead of having to defend himself from a tsunami of attack ads about his diminishing mental capacity, Biden could bombard the airwaves with a set of arguments that could answer Trump’s lies while reminding voters that the reason they elected him in 2020 was they knew that America can only stay great if it is led by a unifier, not an avenger.

这样一来，拜登就不必疲于应付铺天盖地而来的关于他心智衰退的攻击性广告，而是可以通过电视广播进行信息轰炸，反驳特朗普的谎言，同时提醒选民，他们之所以在2020年选了他，是因为他们知道只有由一个团结人民的人而不是复仇者来领导人民，美国才能保持伟大。

One ad could begin with one of Trump’s most outrageous lies trotted out in the debate last Thursday, about how the American economy has been a disaster since Biden entered the White House. To which Biden could say:

比如广告一上来可以是特朗普在上周四辩论中抛出的最令人发指的谎言之一，即自拜登入主白宫以来，美国经济一直是一场灾难。拜登可以这样说：

You know, Donald, I read that you have to pay $88.3 million in damages for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. I just did some back-of-the-envelope calculations: If you would have put $88.3 million in an S&P index fund the day I was inaugurated, it would be up roughly 40 percent right now. That’s about 35 million bucks, Donald. Some disaster! Think of the legal bills you could pay!

Another ad could quote Trump’s remarks about how he could work with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in ways Biden never could. To which Biden could say:

还可以引用特朗普的言论，即关于他是如何与俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京合作的，而拜登永远无法做到这一点。拜登可以这样说：

Donald, do you know why, if Putin could vote in our election, he’d vote for you? It’s because he knows one thing about you: that you could never organize the kind of alliance that I put together to push him out of Ukraine and contain China. You’d just throw those alliances away because you can only envisage transactional relationships. A lasting alliance, Donald, like a lasting marriage, is not a transactional relationship. It’s cemented by shared values. You treat our allies as if they are all shoe stores in some Trump Tower lobby who are just not paying enough rent. Well, not only have you lied about how much our allies have contributed to Ukraine — massive amounts — you also have no clue about how much they amplify American power and values.

唐纳德，如果普京可以在我们的选举里投票，他会投票给你，你知道为什么吗？这是因为他了解你身上的这一点：你永远无法组织起能将他赶出乌克兰并遏制中国的联盟，而我可以。你会抛弃这些联盟，因为你能想到的只有生意场上的交易。唐纳德，持久的联盟，就像持久的婚姻一样，不是交易关系。它是由共同的价值观加固的。你对待我们的盟友就像他们都是特朗普大厦大堂里没有付够租金的鞋店一样。你不仅在我们的盟友对乌克兰的贡献方面胡说八道（他们实际做出了大量贡献），你也不知道它们在多大程度上放大了美国的实力和价值观。

These kinds of rebuttals of Trump would be the best parting gift Biden could give to his party and to all Americans.

对特朗普的这种反驳，将是拜登能给予他的党和所有美国人的最好的离别礼物。

Gautam Mukunda, a presidential scholar and the author of “Picking Presidents,” pointed out to me the other day that “in 1783, when George Washington announced that he would surrender his commission, King George III of England — the man whose empire he destroyed — said that if he did this ‘he would be the greatest man in the world.’ Fourteen years later Washington did it again, leaving the presidency willingly when he could easily have made himself president for life. The father of our country sealed his greatness by showing that sometimes the best thing a president can do for his country is give up the presidency. Today, in the face of the worst threat to our democracy since the Civil War, Joe Biden can cement his legacy by following Washington’s example.”

研究总统的学者、《挑选总统》(Picking Presidents)一书的作者高塔姆·穆昆达前几天向我指出，“1783年，当乔治·华盛顿宣布放弃对他的任命时，英国国王乔治三世——那位摧毁了大英帝国的君主——曾说过，如果他真的放弃任命，‘他将成为世界上最伟大的人。’十四年后，华盛顿再次这样做了，心甘情愿地放弃了总统职位，而他本可以轻而易举地成为终身总统。通过表明有时总统能为国家做的最好的事情就是放弃这个职位，我们的国父确立了他的伟大地位。今天，面对自内战以来对美国民主的最严重威胁，乔·拜登可以效仿华盛顿，巩固自己的政治遗产。”

Biden, besides being a good man, has been a truly consequential president. He deserves to be remembered as the leader who saved the country from Trump in 2020, lifted us from the dark days of the Covid pandemic, passed critical legislation to rebuild America’s infrastructure, renewed the dignity of work, promoted the transition to a green economy — and, in the end, knew when and how to say goodbye.

拜登不仅是一个好人，还是一位真正有影响力的总统。他值得被铭记，因为他在2020年拯救了美国，使美国摆脱了特朗普的领导，带领我们走出了新冠疫情的黑暗时期，通过了重建美国基础设施的重要立法，恢复了人们工作的尊严，促进了向绿色经济的过渡——并且，最终，他知道何时以及如何说再见。