Swedish: men som vägrade göra som han sa

[kfz2010]

Hej,

In the sentence:

För två år sedan hindrades Trump av institutioner och folkvalda personer – guvernörer, valförrättare, vicepresidenten – med formell makt att påverka valutgången, men som vägrade göra som han sa.

Using of "men" sounds bit illogic to the ear, since they "hindered" him already. Or did I miss something? Tack.

 

[MattiasNYC]

I'd translate it into "Two years ago Trump was blocked by institutions and elected people - governors, election officials, the vice president - with the power to change the election outcome, but refused to do what he said."

I'd read the last part as; "elected people with the power to change the election outcome, but who didn't change it."

So the "men" is 'negating' what came right before the comma, which was the powers that they had, not the first part which was blocking Trump.

 

[kfz2010]

Thanks Mattias!

 

[kfz2010]

And would you say it is "better" Swedish if we change the sentence to:
"För två år sedan hindrades Trump av institutioner och folkvalda personer – guvernörer, valförrättare, vicepresidenten som hade formell makt att påverka valutgången, men som vägrade göra som han sa."?

 

[raumar]

Since you haven't got any replies from Swedes, I'll try to answer even though I am Norwegian (I don't think there are any differences between Norwegian and Swedish in this case).

I don't see any reason to replace "institutioner och folkvalda personer med formell makt" with "institutioner och folkvalda personer som hade formell makt". These are different ways to express the same ting, but the first is shorter and simpler.