Imagine for a moment that you are Seth Wilbur Moulton. It is no great hardship. Scholars who follow these things rank you in the top decile of US congressional members for bipartisan conduct. You have the patriotic bona fides of a man who gave his best years to the Marine Corps. You have medals of valour that it took an investigative journalist to make public. Cosmic luck gave you an expensive education and the looks of a beau ideal American president from a moreish, if middlebrow, Netflix series. When you run for that office at age 40, all of Washington mumbles: “But of course.”
想像一下你是塞思•威爾伯•莫爾頓(Seth Wilbur Moulton)。這不是很困難。研究這些問題的學者將你列爲美國國會最支持兩黨合作的前10%的議員。你把自己最好的年華奉獻給海軍陸戰隊(Marine Corps)，足可證你有真正的愛國情懷。你擁有數枚表彰勇氣的勳章，而這還是一個調查記者公之於衆的。無與倫比的好運讓你接受了昂貴的教育，還讓你擁有了一部也許平庸但讓人看不夠的Netflix電視劇中最完美的美國總統形象。當你在40歲時競選總統時，華盛頓的所有人都會喃喃自語道：「但這是理所應當的。」