It Can't Happen Here was the title of Sinclair Lewis's celebrated 1935 novel about fascism in America. It didn't then, and many well-informed Americans—Republicans and Democrats—believed that the election of Donald Trump wouldn't happen either.
Then came the night of Mr Trump's triumph. It was one that few with even the faintest political awareness will ever forget.Almost everyone turned out to be wrong—everyone, that is, except the man who apparently lived in a fantasy world. “It is going to be Brexit times five,” Mr Trump said during the campaign. For once he may have been understating things.
Each circumstance may be unique but they are bound by powerful trends.The biggest is a general revulsion against established politics. Closely related is the collapse in trust for the media—or the Lügenpresse as Mr Trump's alt-right supporters call it, in a reprisal of Hitler's attacks on the “l(fā)ying press”.
A third is a rejection of globalisation.Mr Trump's vow to “put America first” echoes what his European counterparts say about their countries. The older, whiter, non-urban and heavily male coalition that helped to elect him is strikingly similar to populist demographics in Europe.
Mr Trump's most extravagant claim was that “I alone can fix it”—by which he meant the “rigged” system of special interests who curry favour with politicians to further their ends.
特朗普最張揚(yáng)的說法是“只有我才能搞定”(I alone can fix it)——他指的是搞定目前受到特殊利益集團(tuán)“操縱”的體制,這些利益集團(tuán)通過拉攏政客來達(dá)到自己的目的。
Mr Trump was happy to admit he was one of those special interests, having contributed to both the Democratic and Republican parties during a lifetime of political shape-shifting. He also bragged of having avoided taxes. Yet he vowed to be an iconoclastic president in which no rules, institution or even constitutional principle would be sacred.
If he meant it, the long-term damage to American democracy could be incalculable. Yet the thrice-married Mr Trump is nothing if not nimble. He can alter his stance with the same alacrity as he drops negotiating positions with creditors. The only thread is promotion of the Trump brand.Beyond that, does he have a core philosophy?
For German chancellor Angela Merkel, 2016 was another dramatic year that put her centre stage in global affairs and left her facing calls to take over outgoing US President Barack Obama's mantle as the leader of the western world.
While Ms Merkel dismissed such demands as “absurd”, she has recognised that the populist Donald Trump's election to the White House has added to her huge responsibilities. Any thought that, after three terms in power, she might retire at 62 has been swept away: she has decided to stand again in next year's parliamentary elections.
And she has made clear that she has far more than Germany on her mind—pledging to carry on the fight for liberal democracy, free trade and open societies even as rightwing populists are heading in a different direction. This promise alone was enough to make Ms Merkel the FT's Person of the Year for 2015, a leading contender for this year and will almost certainly put her in the running for 2017.
Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, rode to power in 2014 with promises to revive economic growth, create jobs for unemployed youth, and find and repatriate money that rich Indians had hidden abroad.Yet change had been incremental.
But on November 8, Mr Modi set off a “big bang” that caught most Indians totally off-guard.In a televised speech, he declared an immediate ban on the use of Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes—86 per cent of India's circulating cash supply—in a highly cash-driven economy and ordered that they be returned to banks by the end of the year.
He is betting the political pay-off for demonstrating tough resolve on black money—and, incidentally, wiping out the cash reserves of his political rivals—will outweigh the economic costs of the acute cash scarcity. Several large state elections early next year will indicate whether he is right.
Nigel Farage, Eurosceptic scourge of “the political elite”, ended a remarkable 2016 appearing in the most potent and ironic picture of the year: smiling alongside a victorious Donald Trump outside the gold doors of the president-elect's New York apartment.
Leading Britain out of the EU already qualifies Mr Farage as a politician of huge significance. If Brexit leads to the unravelling of the EU project, historians will regard him as the catalyst and his role in the events of 2016 as a defining moment.
Masayoshi Son, the risk-addicted billionaire who built Japan's SoftBank into a global internet powerhouse, is a man who moves fast to seize whatever he has set his eyes on.
Less than a month after Britain voted to leave the EU, Mr Son clinched a deal to acquire UK chip designer Arm Holdings for £24.3bn. It was the largest Asian takeover of a British company.But the audacious deal was not enough to satisfy the 59-year-old known as Masa, who enjoys his reputation for having big and crazy ideas.
After the summer had passed, Mr Son was off to Riyadh to meet Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's powerful deputy crown prince, to launch a $100bn technology fund. Armed with fresh funding power, Mr Son was next spotted in New York, forging ties with President-elect Donald Trump with a $50bn pledge to invest in US start-ups.
His tiny legs dangling from the seat of an ambulance, staring numbly and coated in dirt and blood, five-year-old Omran Daqneesh for a brief moment on August 17, 2016 reminded the world of its numbness to the tragedy ripping apart Syria's ancient city of Aleppo—and a war that has shaken the Middle East and sent its shockwaves across the world.
Newspapers in Europe and the US spread the image of the small boy, injured and alone, and Omran became the face of a war the world is unable, or unwilling, to stop. After tens of thousands of civilians managed to flee amid intense fighting this month, Omran's whereabouts are currently unknown.
Mr Trump was happy to admit he was one of those special interests.
特朗普樂于承認(rèn)他是特殊利益集團(tuán)之一。
brag [br?g]
v.吹牛,自夸
He also bragged of having avoided taxes.
他還吹噓過自己的避稅行為。
nimble ['n?mb(?)l]
adj.滑頭的;敏捷的;聰明的;敏感的
Yet the thrice-married Mr Trump is nothing if not nimble.
不過,結(jié)過3次婚的特朗普極其滑頭。
revive economic growth
恢復(fù)經(jīng)濟(jì)增長
Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, rode to power in 2014 with promises to revive economic growth, create jobs for unemployed youth, and find and repatriate money that rich Indians had hidden abroad.