From the Revolution to the Civil Rights Era, the United States had a vibrant, robustly participatory and raucous culture of voting.
从美国革命到人权时代，美国选举曾经充满生机，参与者信念坚定，草根文化喧嚣一时。
It was street theater, open-air debates, fasting and feasting and toasting, parades and bonfires.
街头戏剧，公开辩论，斋戒，盛宴，祝酒，游行和篝火晚会盛极一时。
During the 19th century, immigrants and urban political machines helped fuel this culture of voting.
十九世纪，移民和城市政治机器使得选举文化迅速发展。
That culture grew with each successive wave of new voters.
新选民不断加入，选族文化不断增长。
During Reconstruction, when new African-American voters, new African-American citizens, began to exercise their power,
在美国重建期，当新一代美国黑人选民，新一代美国黑人市民行使他们的权利，
they celebrated in jubilee parades that connected emancipation with their newfound right to vote.
他们为欢庆奴隶解放纪念日而游行，把他们的解放与新获得的选举权联系到一起。
A few decades later, the suffragettes brought a spirit of theatricality to their fight,
几十年后，妇女参政运动给这场斗争附加了一种戏剧化的效果：
marching together in white dresses as they claimed the franchise.
穿着白衣游行前进，宣称选举权。
And the Civil Rights Movement, which sought to redeem the promise of equal citizenship that had been betrayed by Jim Crow, put voting right at the center.
民权运动，则寻求重新确认所承诺的被种族隔离政策背叛的平等公民权，把选举权作为民权运动的核心。
From Freedom Summer to the march in Selma, that generation of activists knew that voting matters,
从自由之夏到塞尔玛行军（黑人选民登记活动），那一代的活动者知道选举事关重大，
and they knew that spectacle and the performance of power is key to actually claiming power.
他们也知晓那种壮观的场面，权利的行使才是权利的意义所在。
But it's been over a half century since Selma and the Voting Rights Act,
塞尔玛行军和选举权力法案已经过去了半个世纪，
and in the decades since, this face-to-face culture of voting has just about disappeared.
面对面的选举文化也已经消失了几十年。
It's been killed by television and then the internet. The couch has replaced the commons.
这都是电视惹的祸，互联网更是后来居上。沙发代替了评论。
Screens have made citizens into spectators.
屏幕使公民变成了观众。
And while it's nice to share political memes on social media, that's a rather quiet kind of citizenship.
在社交媒体上分享政治观点不失为好主意，但这只是安静的公民权。
It's what the sociologist Sherry Turkle calls "being alone together."
社会学家雪莉·特克称之为“群体中的孤独”。
