国际顶尖科学期刊《自然》（Nature）于10月19日发表题为《 Hillary Clinton will make a fine US president》的社论，表达该刊对希拉里的支持立场。社论说：在一场前所未有的大选之后，希拉里·克林顿将会成为一位优秀的美国总统。这不仅仅因为她不是唐纳德·川普。

社论说：关于川普不适合当总统，还有什么可多说的？甚至他自己的党都和他撇清关系了。最近揭露的他对妇女的肮脏言行只是证实了很多人一开始就有的看法：川普是一个不适合担任高级公职并为之负责的煽动者。

社论认为，克林顿是一位出类拔萃的政治家典范。她充分理解与《自然》读者直接相关的复杂问题，而且能与科学家和学术界合作。克林顿可能是20年来最合格的总统候选人。

社论分析了川普现象及其所代表的对移民和全球化的愤怒，社论指出：全球化和现代科技使很多人而不仅仅是富人受益，但也使很多人遭受失败，现在是以公平和公正的态度重新审视国家和全球经济政策的时候了。这并不意味着关闭边界、提高保护性关税和阻碍科学技术发展，然而政治家们需要更了解他们的现行经济政策对人们造成的影响，还需要解决问题的办法。

社论赞扬了克林顿提出的从煤到清洁能源的转化计划，批评了川普继续发展煤和石油燃料、退出巴黎气候协定的许诺，认为川普在这一点上和共和党的传统一致。

社论最后说：虽然20年来两党都变得更极端化，保守主义者还是背离科学主流太远了。好消息是现在每个人都知道共和党遇到了麻烦。新一代保守主义领袖需要制定新的路线，而在同时，克林顿必须操起缰绳。

作为一家严肃的科学期刊，《自然》公开支持一位美国总统候选人是极不寻常的事件。也许，这反映了国际科学界对美国这个科技大国前途的担忧。

下面是《自然》社论的英文原文：

Hillary Clinton will make a fine US president

In March 2011, this publication suggested that the US Congress seemed lost in the “intellectual wilderness”. The Republicans had taken over the House of Representatives, and one of the early acts of the chamber’s science committee was to approve legislation that denied the threat of climate change. As it turns out, this was just one tiny piece of a broader populist movement that was poised to transform the US political scene. Judging by the current presidential campaign, when it comes to reason, decency and use of evidence, much of the country’s political system seems to have lost its way.

Is there anything left to say about the unsuitability of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate? Even senior figures of his own party have disowned him. The latest revelations about his sordid attitude and behaviour towards women only confirm what was obvious to many from the very beginning: Trump is a demagogue not fit for high office, or for the responsibilities that come with it.

Will the centre hold? Will the United States elect its first female president,
Hillary Clinton? It should do. And not just because she is not Donald Trump. Clinton is a quintessential politician — and a good one at that. She has shown tremendous understanding of complex issues directly relevant to Nature’s readers, and has engaged with scientists and academics. Take health: as first lady, she led attempts to expand health care in the early years of her husband Bill Clinton’s presidency. She supported the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which reaches millions of poor children. She championed women’s rights, and as secretaryof state made global health a priority through the Global Health Initiative, a framework to coordinate various US programmes. Clinton may not have the outsider appeal of a newcomer. But few politicians with her degree of experience and pragmatism do. She is arguably the best-qualified presidential candidate for two decades.

Nonetheless, the schism in US society runs deep, and will not be healed by one election. The situation is most acute for the Republican Party, which faces an existential moment. Nobody knows what Trump’s followers will do next. America is fertile territory for conspiracy theories,and Trump is fanning the flames with allegations that the election is rigged. But his rebuke extends to the entire political system, which can be fairly accused of promoting decades of policies that put wealthy power brokers first. Cynicism is palpable on both sides of the spectrum, and the political machine built by Clinton and her coterie of advisers is ill-suited to salve these wounds.

Trump is the product of a social phenomenon that cannot be ignored. He has tapped into a much larger undercurrent of legitimate anger that is fuelling political upheaval in many countries. The Netherlands has Geert Wilders. Hungary has Viktor Orbán. France has Marine Le Pen, a more politically astute version of her father, Jean-Marie. The xenophobic and populist message spouted by such politicians is ages old and has secured the rise of countless tyrants throughout history. Most recently, hostility towards immigrants contributed to the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union.

This hostility is rooted in anxiety: about cultural disruption, job and financial security and a sense that political systems are being exploited and run for the benefit of somebody else. It’s true that, for decades, Western leaders have promoted free trade and globalization as an end goal, and businesses have gradually shifted their resources around the world to gain efficiencies and bolster profits. In parallel,the rise of mechanization and robotics has reduced the need for people working in factories and on farms. As a result, millions have lost jobs in industrialized countries. And all the time, billions in the developing world continue to struggle in poverty, often rocked by political instability and outright war.

Whatever the cause, extreme and visible inequality is a recipe for widespread politicalinstability, and that is in nobody’s interest — including that of the global elite. This is a central challenge for politicians today, and researchers must play their part. Many people have benefited from globalization and modern technology,
and not just the rich. But too many have lost out. Unquestionably,it is time to reassess national and global economic policies with an eye towards equity and fairness This does not mean closing borders, raising protective tariffs and putting a damper on technological development. But, clearly, politicians around the world need more and better information about how current economic policies affect people, both at home and abroad. They also need solutions.

Such questions are particularly salient when it comes to climate policy — which helps to explain why global warming is one of the few scientific issues to receive any attention at all in the US election. Clean energy represents an enormous economic opportunity, but it also poses a threat to entrenched economic interests and, in many cases, jobs.

Clinton has proposed a US$30-billion plan to help communities that depend on coal to make the transition to a clean-energy economy. That won’t be easy, but it’s the right idea. Trump has promised to focus on fossil-fuel development and to pull out of the Paris climate treaty. Sadly, this is one issue on which his views align with Republican orthodoxy.

Indeed, the party’s official 2016 platform writes off the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a “political mechanism”, and says the modern environmental agenda is based on “shoddy science” and “scare tactics”. And as discussed in a News story on page 300, the House ‘science’ panel has become little more than a
partisan attack dog.

Although both parties have become more extreme over the past two decades, conservatives have turned their backs on mainstream science to an unprecedented degree. If there is any good news, it’s that everybody now recognizes that the Republican Party has a problem. A new generation of conservative leaders will need to set a fresh course. In the meantime, Clinton must take the reins.

（原文见：http://www.nature.com/news/hillary-clinton-will-make-a-fine-us-president-1.20823）