金融时报:“粉丝团”成政坛新兴力量

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2022年03月21日

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“粉丝团”成政坛新兴力量

“不同党派的人们在社交媒体上各自站队，为他们的候选人欢呼喝彩，如同在看一场激烈的拳击比赛。难怪在去年秋天的‘美国总统大赛’期间，连最受欢迎的NFL也遭遇了收视率下跌。美国人爱上了一种新的比赛。政客‘粉丝团’并非是新生事物，但却在近几年迅速发展壮大。狂热的粉丝和一般的支持者有何不同？”

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

collusion[kə'luːʒn] n. 共谋，勾结

gridiron['ɡrɪdaɪən] n. 橄榄球场

pummel['pʌml] v. 接连地打

libidinal[lɪ'bɪdənl] adj. 性欲的

impromptu[ɪm'prɒmptjuː] adj. 即兴的

frigging[lɪ'bɪdənl] adj. 该死的

entail[ɪn'teɪl] vt. 使必需，使蒙受

aviation[ˌeɪvi'eɪʃn] n. 航空

adversity[əd'vɜːsəti] n. 逆境，灾难

Trumpsters, Corbynistas and the rise of the political fan(754 words)

By Simon Kuper

When will Donald Trump’s supporters finally peel off? Liberals are now hoping his campaign’s apparent collusion with Russia in last year’s election will do the trick. But many Trump voters are more than just voters. They are political fans — a poorly understood modern phenomenon. Political fans reason a lot like sports or music fans, explains Cornel Sandvoss, professor of media and journalism at the UK’s Huddersfield University.

Political fandom isn’t entirely new. Margaret Thatcher had her fan base and, in 1994, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy created a party, Forza Italia, named after a football supporters’ chant. His candidates even wore Italy’s blue football shirts.

But social media gave political fandom a lift. Now supporters have spaces to express themselves, away from old po-faced wannabe-neutral political media. Partisans gather on social media to root for their candidate in a debate, almost as if it were a boxing match. Elections look ever more like sporting spectacles. No wonder that during last autumn’s US presidential “horse race”, viewing figures for gridiron’s National Football League fell: many fans had found a new sport. Trump, who is steeped in American sports, understands the crossover with politics. Recall the video he tweeted in which he appears as a wrestler pummelling the CNN logo.

Fandom works best in two-party political systems such as the US or UK, because these mimic the us-versus-them format of sports. (Coalition politics discourages fandom, because teams don’t really play against each other.) In an us-versus-them game, you can be not just a fan but an “anti-fan”, who roots against a candidate. Most voters in the US presidential election were above all anti-fans of the other party’s candidate.

American phenomena usually spread to the UK first. In a YouGov poll of Conservative voters in June’s British elections, a combined 30 per cent described their prime motivation as “anti-Labour” or against Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Only 5 per cent said they had made a positive choice for Conservative leader Theresa May. Meanwhile, Corbynistas have a unique form of anti-fandom: their enemy-in-chief is their own party’s ex-leader Tony Blair.

Fandom gives people an identity. Sandvoss says this matters particularly as traditional sources of identity are fading: more and more adults aren’t married, don’t identify with their job, and don’t have a clear economic class, religion or trade union. Many fill that vacuum by being fans, whether it’s of Trump, the Yankees or Apple.

A child uses a teddy bear as a “transitional space” between himself and the world, said the psychoanalyst DW Winnicott. For political fans, says Sandvoss, the candidate is their teddy bear — the object that links them to the world. Sandvoss calls their fandom “libidinal-narcissistic”. The candidate’s job is to express the fans’ identity.

Like music fans, political fans prefer heroes with star quality. They rarely respond to parties, or to uncharismatic politicians such as Hillary Clinton, François Hollande and May. Someone like George HW Bush probably couldn’t get elected today.

Some Trumpsters and Corbynistas care about changing government policy: about building Trump’s wall, or nationalising British industries. But for most political fans, policy is secondary. Joan C Williams, author of White Working Class, explains: “You don’t go, ‘I like the Giants because I think Timmy’s pitch is awesome.’ You go, ‘I like the Giants because I frigging love the Giants!’”

That’s why many Corbynistas waved away the question of his electability. What they cared about most was not remaking Britain, but finding an identity as fans. For similar reasons, last year’s referendum on Brexit largely ignored boring policy issues. Most voters simply chose a team. Only now are many Leave voters discovering that their vote probably entails leaving the single market, not to mention such obscure organisations as Euratom or Europe’s single aviation market.

The traditional rhetoric of fandom is life-long loyalty: “We’ll support you evermore.” Hardcore fans proudly stick with their team in adversity. When diehard Trumpsters are goaded to drop their man over mounting evidence of collusion with Russia, they think: not now when my team needs me most. Diehard fans perceive the world as fans. They cannot see their own team’s fouls, and so presume that referees are biased against them.

However, Sandvoss cautions, most fans are in fact casual supporters. The majority don’t go to games (or rallies), don’t buy the merchandise, and switch on only when their team is winning. Corbyn is now enjoying that effect, soaring in polls after beating expectations in the election.

But if their hero disappoints, casual fans will switch off (see Trump’s approval ratings) and find something else to support. The NFL football season starts in September.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.Political fandom has became exceedingly popular in recent years with the help of ____.

A. social media.

B. policy debate.

C. two-party political system.

D. political media.

答案(1)

2.Fandom works best in two-party political systems because ____.

A. the adversarial system of two party mimics the confrontation between fan and anti-fan.

B. the rivalry between two parties is very much like the us-versus-them binary in sports.

C. coalition politics in the multi-party system discourages the us-versus-them mentality.

D. in two-party political people acquire a clear identity by supporting a candidate.