The Wall St.Journal 24Feb2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, February 24, 2020 |A

Sanders Isn’t Trump’s Challenger So Much as His Sequel

W

e’ve seen this movie before,
but for some reason the
critics seem convinced it
will have a different ending this time:
A bombastic septuagenarian political
outsider calls out a rigged system to
the cheering masses. He finishes sec-
ond in Iowa and first in New Hamp-
shire and Nevada. He leads all the
national polls while the establish-
ment candidates wage all-out war on
one another. Meanwhile, the media
dismisses his chances and an increas-
ingly worried political establishment
convinces itself it’s only a fluke, that
the worst case is a chaotic conven-
tion that ultimately nominates a
mainstream candidate.
You’d think we political types
would know better by now. The most
important thing I learned managing
Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential
race was that the old political norms
were dead. Experts and pundits’ pre-
dictions were often no more than
guesses based on the way things
used to be. Media groupthink only

made these outdated and misguided

notions more stubborn.

Am I the only one who was em-

barrassed enough at missing the

2016 political movement that elected

Donald Trump that I rethought my

approach to modern politics?

Like Mr. Trump, Sen. Bernie Sand-

ers is leading an insurgent campaign,

riding a nationwide wave of discon-

tent as many Democrats no longer

think the party represents them. He

inspires the most radical and disen-

franchised members of his party. Yet

he still manages to expand his sup-

port among more-moderate voters,

even though they disagree with some

of his extreme positions. It’s exactly

his passionate willingness to defend

the crazy things he says that draws

broad support. If I had a dollar for

every voter I’ve heard say, “I don’t

agree with everything Donald Trump

says, but I like that he has the guts to

say it,” I could buy Trump Tower. Mr.

Sanders is benefiting from that same

sentiment.

It isn’t policy positions that draw

voters to Messrs. Sanders and

Trump. It’s their perceived authentic-

ity. At a time when almost no person

or institution is above reproach, the

electorate craves someone who tells

it like it is. From government to

churches and from universities to

Wall Street, many Americans feel let

down and lied to. You can’t even

trust baseball anymore. So listening

to someone give you the raw, unvar-

nished truth is very appealing.

This pattern plays out in other

elections too. While the establish-

ment politicos of both parties remain

convinced that the country if fixated

on issues, it’s actually fixated on per-

sonalities. That’s why Reps. Alexan-

dria Ocasio-Cortez and Dan Cren-

shaw are so popular. Put Ilhan Omar

and Matt Gaetz into that bucket, too.

These rising political stars have de-

veloped reputations for speaking

truth to power and sticking it to the

establishment. Americans in 2020

eat that up.

In Mr. Trump, the man and the

political moment were perfectly

timed. Could this be Mr. Sanders’s

year to pull off the same trick? The

three-term Vermont senator has al-

ways styled himself a socialist revo-

lutionary. His cutting rhetoric has

alienated him from the party estab-

lishment and media. He doesn’t

mince words about “millionaires and

billionaires,” who he claims have

weaponized their wealth against ev-

eryday citizens. Their goal, he says,

“is not to strengthen the middle

class, but continue the trend in

which the rich are getting richer at

the expense of everyone else.”

That’s debatable, but it reveals Mr.

Sanders’s fundamental strategy: He

isolates his target group, demonizes

it, and relentlessly attacks. Sound fa-

miliar? Replace billionaires with ille-

gal immigrants and throw in a huge

helping of the “mainstream media is

unfair to me,” and you have a perfect

match. Mr. Sanders is exploiting the

same sentiments that Mr. Trump

rode to the presidency on in 2016.

If Mr. Sanders’s momentum con-

tinues, he may topple Joe Biden in

South Carolina, where the two are

now tied. If that happens, it’s hard to

see how Mr. Sanders doesn’t end up

winning the nomination. He leads by

double digits in the most recent na-

tional poll and is surging in other

state polls.

The funniest part of this block-

buster sequel may be that if Mr.

Sanders does win the nomination,

those same pundits and politicos

will swear he can never win in No-

vember. I learned enough from 2016

not to make a definitive political

prediction this far out about the fi-

nal outcome. Maybe we’re watching

“Groundhog Day.”

Mr. Sullivan is a founding partner

at Firehouse Strategies and was

Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential

campaign manager.

By Terry Sullivan

He’s brash outsider who’s

leading the pack. Experts

swear he can’t win. We’ve

seen this movie before.

OPINION

W

hatever the outcome

of a case, then-Attor-

ney General Robert H.

Jackson observed in

1940, “the government

... has really won if justice has been
done.” It’s worth keeping that truth
in mind as we consider the dispute
over Attorney General William Barr
and Roger Stone.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson last
week sentenced Mr. Stone to 40
months in prison—a term within the
range Mr. Barr had suggested when
he overruled prosecutors who recom-
mended a term of seven to nine
years. The attorney general’s move
generated accusations that he was

doing President Trump’s bidding by
showing leniency to Mr. Trump’s
friend and former political adviser. It
even prompted a petition, signed by
more than 2,000 former Justice De-
partment employees, demanding Mr.
Barr’s resignation.
Before we address these attacks
directly, we think it useful to con-
sider a few data points in Mr. Barr’s
recent tenure. Notwithstanding his
own skepticism about aspects of spe-
cial counsel Robert Mueller’s investi-
gation, he allowed that probe to run
its course. Mr. Barr supported the de-
cision not to prosecute Andrew Mc-
Cabe, a former deputy director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and
frequent critic of Mr. Trump, despite

Lawyers Cast a Stone at William Barr

overwhelming evidence that Mr. Mc-

Cabe not only lied when he denied

leaking information about an investi-

gation but also berated others for the

leak to deflect suspicion from him-

self.

Mr. Barr has said publicly that he

believes Mr. Stone’s prosecution was

warranted, and that, given his con-

viction, so is a prison sentence. And

the attorney general has pointedly

criticized the president—rightly, in

our view—for commenting publicly

about cases pending in court and be-

fore the Justice Department. That is

not the behavior of someone doing

the president’s bidding.

The criticisms of Mr. Barr’s deci-

sion about the Stone sentencing rec-

ommendation were unmoored from

the case itself. Whatever the line

prosecutors thought, the decision to

reduce the proposed sentence was

reached by others at the department

as well, including career attorneys,

one of whom signed the lower rec-

ommendation.

The Stone prosecution was initi-

ated in an indictment filed by the

Mueller prosecution team, for ob-

structing Congress’s investigation

into whether there was a Trump-Rus-

sia conspiracy. By the time these

charges were brought, it was clear

there was no such conspiracy.

Mr. Stone was also charged with

threatening a witness by suggesting

that he would kidnap the witness’s

dog and by telling the witness to

“prepare to die”—but also by vowing

that Stone’s lawyers would tear the

witness to shreds on cross-examina-

tion. There is no doubt about the fac-

tual basis for these offenses; Mr.

Stone communicated with the wit-

ness in text messages introduced into

evidence.

The obstruction counts ordinarily

would have generated a recom-

mended sentence under the U.S. Sen-

tencing Guidelines of 37 to 46

months or less. A word about the

guidelines: They were adopted in

1987, and although at first they were

presumptively binding, they are now

strictly advisory, owing to a 2005 Su-

preme Court ruling,U.S. v. Booker.

The recommended sentence under

the guidelines shoots up to 90 to 108

months—the range the line prosecu-

tors recommended for Mr. Stone—

when threats are involved. But it’s

obvious such higher sentences are

meant to be imposed only when the

threats are real. In this case, the wit-

ness was on record as saying he

didn’t take them seriously.

The prosecutors’ initial sentencing

memo was far from a dispassionate

discussion of facts and law. It sug-

gested a link between Mr. Stone and

“foreign election interference,”

which, quoting Federalist No. 68, it

characterized as the “most deadly

adversary of republican govern-

ment,” although the proof never tied

Mr. Stone to any such activity. The

prosecutors dismissed the witness’s

testimony by asserting that a threat

doesn’t have to be serious to justify

additional years in prison.

Prosecutors are supposed to seek

justice, not to play the Sentencing

Guidelines as a pinball machine, see-

ing how many times they can ring

the bell, or to use a sentencing rec-

ommendation to put public pressure

on the judge for a harsh sentence. In

a highly publicized and politically

fraught case, it was not only proper

but advisable for the attorney gen-

eral to ensure that the government’s

sentencing recommendation not

serve such unworthy ends.

The much-publicized letter from

former Justice Department employ-

ees is a curious document. The sign-

ers seek to inoculate themselves from

criticism as politically motivated by

pointing out that many served under

Republican attorneys general. Still,

it’s hard to escape the impression

that the letter writers think of them-

selves as an elite clerisy, gifted with

a superior understanding that should

dictate the management of all cases.

The letter writers cite their oath

and urge colleagues still at the de-

partment to follow it. But it’s lawless

to encourage Justice Department

lawyers to defy their supervisors, up

to and including the attorney gen-

eral, who take the same oath.

All that said, the president has se-

verely burdened Mr. Barr’s conduct of

his office by repeatedly sounding off

about pending cases. He has justified

his comments by saying he is the

highest law-enforcement officer in the

land, and that’s technically true. But it

cuts against the president’s narrow

interest in at least two ways.

First, he has at least the same ob-

ligation as any other actor in the law-

enforcement hierarchy to refrain

from statements that could prejudice

anyone’s chance to get an impartial

hearing. Whether he likes it or not,

courts will enforce that obligation if

he violates it, whether by dismissing

charges or by taking other steps to

undo any damage.

Second, the attorney general and

others at the Justice Department

must consider whether public confi-

dence in the department will be

shaken if their decisions agree with

the president’s expressed views. That

would have the perverse effect of en-

couraging Justice Department deci-

sions with which the president dis-

agrees.

Mr. Barr has agreed to testify be-

fore the House Judiciary Committee

on March 31. We have no doubt he

will do so with the same integrity,

and clarity of thought and word he

has shown thus far. Frankly, we can’t

wait.

Mr. Meese served as U.S. attorney

general, 1985-88, and is a distin-

guished fellow emeritus at the Heri-

tage Foundation. Mr. Mukasey served

as attorney general, 2007-09, and a

federal district judge, 1988-2006.

By Edwin Meese III
And Michael B. Mukasey

WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES

Former officials urge

current officials to defy

their supervisors. That’s

an affront to the rule of law.

Barr at a Jan. 13 press conference in Washington.

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Modi Bashes Nehru, but Rejects Only His Good Ideas

Mumbai

P

resident Trump is visiting India
on Monday and Tuesday, and
his agenda includes meeting
the country’s top business leaders.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will
probably use this visit to try to show
that he cares about the economy,
which, thanks in no small part to his
policies, isn’t doing very well these
days.
Mr. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata
Party love to blame India’s first prime
minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who died
in office in 1964, for the country’s
problems. The irony is that the BJP
hasn’t rejected all of Nehru’s ideas—
only the good ones, such as secular-
ism and freedom of the press.
The Modi government embraces
Nehru’s disastrous economic policies.
Nehruvian socialism was character-
ized by Soviet-style central planning.

There were five-year plans. The gov-

ernment decided which industries

would be encouraged and which

wouldn’t. These decisions were often

driven by politics, not economics.

Government would lavish subsidies

on industries deemed important

while depriving others of capital. In

parts of the economy where private

businesses were allowed to operate,

they needed approval from as many

as 80 different government agen-

cies—a system known as the Licence

Raj. The government could at any

point decide to nationalize the few

private companies that managed to

comply.

Another core tenet of Nehruvian

socialism: an extreme distrust of any-

thing foreign. India’s tariffs were

among the highest in the world. The

country imposed import quotas; raw

materials and spare parts, among

many other foreign goods, needed

special licenses to be imported. Strict

control over the foreign-exchange

market hindered trade and foreign

investment. The rupee could be ex-

changed only with government per-

mission, and only at a rate dictated

by government.

Not surprisingly, the economy

grew at 3.5% a year from the 1950s to

the 1980s, which is slow for an

emerging market. Per capita income

grew at 1.3% a year, and the share of

the Indian population living below

the poverty line rose from 45% in

1951 to 47% in 1980.

These policies weren’t sustainable.

In 1991 the government faced a bal-

ance-of-payments crisis. India almost

ran out of foreign currency to pay for

imports and needed a loan from the

International Monetary Fund. As a

condition for the loan, the P.V.

Narasimha Rao government had to

open up the Indian economy. The

government slashed tariffs, let mar-

kets decide exchange rates, reduced

licensure requirements, and made

foreign investment much easier. All

this led to more and better employ-

ment opportunities.

Indians’ average income today is

more than 3.5 times what it was in

1991. More than 270 million people
      have been lifted out of poverty. Even
      this understates India’s economic

progress: The population has also

grown by more than half since then.

Tens of millions born after 1991 have

never lived in poverty.

But parts of India’s economy are

still choked by central planning. Agri-

cultural restrictions—such as limits

on where and at what price farmers

can sell their products—entrench ru-

ral poverty. Manufacturing is ham-

strung by labor laws that make it un-

profitable to hire lots of low-skilled

workers. Firms often rely on automa-

tion instead, producing mostly capi-

tal-intensive goods. Another problem

is that even in labor-intensive indus-

tries, Indian manufacturing firms

tend to be smaller than those in

other countries. For instance, most

Chinese apparel firms employ more

than 200 workers; most Indian firms

in the same industry employ fewer

than eight. This means that most

people don’t have formal jobs with

fixed salaries. More than 80% of In-

dia’s workers hold informal jobs with

low and unstable incomes.

When Mr. Modi was elected in

2014, he promised to fix these prob-

lems. Not only has he failed to de-

liver, he has undone salutary reforms.

For example, Mr. Modi has repeatedly

raised tariffs. Last year the govern-

ment opted out of the Regional Com-

prehensive Economic Partnership, a

major Asian trade pact. The govern-

ment has also threatened to bring

back import licenses. Writing in the

Indian newspaper Mint, columnist

Vivek Dehejia laments that “a three-

decade commitment to trade open-

ness has been all but abandoned.”

What about foreign investment?

Here again Mr. Modi has turned hos-

tile, much like Nehru. In February

2019, the government imposed new

burdensome regulations on foreign e-

commerce firms such as Amazon and

Walmart, which owns Flipkart. This

move wasn’t about social justice or

economic efficiency. It was a pure po-

litical sop to local retailers before the

2019 election. This explains why Mr.

Modi snubbed Jeff Bezos on his re-

cent visit to India.

The government will sometimes

dangle subsidies to attract foreign in-

vestment. For example, the govern-

ment has teased a planned $6.3 billion

subsidy fund to lure electronics man-

ufacturers such as Apple and Sam-

sung and their contract suppliers. But

the message from the Amazon deba-

cle is clear. The government will turn

on a dime against foreign investors if

domestic politics demands it.

India’s economy is facing its worst

slowdown in three decades and, ac-

cording to a spiked government re-

port from last year, a 6.1% unemploy-

ment rate, its highest in 45 years.

Poverty has increased in 22 states

since 2018. Consumption in rural In-

dia has fallen from already low levels.

Wages have declined in many parts

of the economy such as trade, finan-

cial services and real estate. What In-

dia needs right now is open markets,

not a return of Nehruvian socialism.

Mr. Devadiga is an economist spe-

cializing in public policy and eco-

nomic history.

By Jairaj Devadiga

He’s copied the socialist’s

penchant for tariffs and

regulations, shedding

jobs and slowing growth.

From a Feb. 23 Los Angeles Times

report:

The Bloomberg 2020 operation is

hiring more than 500 people at a rate

of $2,500 a month to text friends and

post on social media in support of the

former New York mayor....One,a

recent college graduate living in Sac-

ramento, describes himself as an ar-

dent supporter of Vermont Sen. Ber-

nie Sanders.... But the Bloomberg

gig seemed like easy money, he said.

The ambivalence shows up in his

outreach efforts.

“Sam Donaldson just nailed it:

Mike Bloomberg is the president we

need to unite our country!” he texted

one of his friends....Buthequickly

followed up with a personal adden-

dum: “Please disregard, vote Bernie

or Warren.”

Notable&Quotable