The Wall Street Journal - 06.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, March 6, 2020 |A

W

hen Joe Biden was
declared the big win-
ner in South Carolina,
you could hear Demo-
cratic donors from
Manhattan to Malibu crying for joy.
Buoyed by glowing, round-the-clock
media coverage of his weekend
blowout, Mr. Biden made an impres-
sive showing on Super Tuesday.
With the former vice president re-
surgent, the Democratic establish-
ment now has an unexpected final
chance to crush Bernie Sanders’s so-
cialist revolution.

Mr. Sanders achieved early front-
runner status by making the wealthy
into boogeymen. Pushed to the wall
by a rising tide of antiwealth senti-
ment, these elite Democratic donors
feared losing control of their party
to a socialist who didn’t need them
and, worse, would make them his
permanent scapegoat. The patronage
system they had built over genera-
tions, which assured them of power
and fortune, was at risk of forced
liquidation.
The Democratic donor class had
thrown money at a succession of

With Obama’s blessing,

the party establishment,

including its big money,

has gone all in on Biden.

OPINION

Democratic Donors Have Their Candidate

candidates they judged better bets.

Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Beto

O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg were

each trumpeted, proclaimed by the

establishment’s media organs as the

next Barack Obama. Then, to the

horror of their backers, most failed

to connect with voters and exited

early. Donors were dispirited.

Michael Bloomberg’s entrance

was a potential safe harbor—and an

attractive one, given the prospect

that donors could have influence

without having to open their wal-

lets. But that notion was dispelled

the moment Elizabeth Warren evis-

cerated him on the debate stage.

With no viable options left, do-

nors were becoming quietly re-

signed to a Sanders loss to Presi-

dent Trump in November. They

could thrive economically in a sec-

ond Trump term, but they couldn’t

survive politically if a socialist took

over their party apparatus. Backing

Mr. Biden became the last option to

consolidate their resources and re-

cover their slipping grip on politi-

cal power.

Everyone recognized the obvious

problem: He was on his third run for

president but had never won a pri-

mary. He’d been obliterated in Iowa,

New Hampshire and Nevada. Then,

the miracle. Rep. Jim Clyburn’s en-

dorsement propelled Mr. Biden to

pull off a back-from-the-dead tri-

umph in South Carolina.

Mr. Clyburn immediately used his

political capital to make clear that

Mr. Biden needed a campaign “over-

haul.” The candidate agreed. With

this go-ahead, the money men

kicked their efforts into high gear

trying to put his Humpty Dumpty

operation back together again.

The choreography of the estab-

lishment consolidating its resources

quickly became visible. Mr. Biden

hauled in $5 million in the 24 hours

after South Carolina. Then came

withdrawal announcements from Mr.

Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. By the

time Mr. Buttigieg offered his en-

dorsement, Mr. Biden’s finance team

had recruited dozens of Mayor

Pete’s “bundlers.” Top Obama confi-

dantes made it known that “the sig-

nal” had been sent to back the for-

mer vice president.

Alongside these on-the-ground

moves, some media analysts esti-

mated that Mr. Biden enjoyed as

much as $72 million in earned media

“air cover.” The press’s goodwill

filled the void while the Biden cam-

paign rushed to fill its coffers for the

contests beyond Super Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Mr. Biden re-

ceived another political blessing. Mr.

Bloomberg exited the race after his

$570 million campaign netted an

embarrassingly low haul of dele-

gates. He then immediately en-

dorsed Mr. Biden, who will undoubt-

edly be the beneficiary of the former

New York mayor’s deep pockets.

With no billionaire primary can-

didates left to kick around, Mr.

Sanders has turned his ire against

Mr. Biden’s contributors. Taking the

stage in Minnesota Monday night,

Mr. Sanders reprimanded his audi-

ence when they booed Mr. Biden’s

name. The former vice president

was a longtime friend and “decent

guy whose just wrong on the is-

sues,” Mr. Sanders said. Then he

went after Mr. Biden’s donors: “Does

anybody think that we’re going to

bring about the change we need in

America when you are indebted to

60 billionaires?”

An unwieldy field has been nar-

rowed to a two-man race. The mil-

lionaires and billionaires, the type

of people Mr. Sanders has said

“shouldn’t exist,” are throwing their

backing to Mr. Biden, who, unlike

Mr. Bloomberg, has a significant na-

tional following. Now he’ll have the

money he needs to go up against

Mr. Sanders’s well-funded and orga-

nized movement, which took in a

gargantuan haul of $46.5 million in

February.

This is the moment my Demo-

cratic donor friends have dreamed

of since Hillary Clinton lost. The

battle for the soul of their party will

be fought on the terms that both

they and Mr. Sanders want: big-

money power brokers versus a

small-dollar socialist mob. Since

2015, Bernie Sanders has been a

threat to the political relevance of

the Democratic donor class. Now,

they’re out for revenge and hoping

to bankrupt the socialist revolution

once and for all.

Mr. Palmer is a Republican strat-

egist, activist and fundraiser and

founder of Palmer Investments Inc.

By Dan Palmer

MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES

Biden declares victory in Los Angeles Tuesday.

Hindu Supremacism Turns Deadly in Delhi

Deadly riots in Delhi
last month killed at
least 44 people,
most of them Mus-
lim, and raised the
prospect of height-
ened conflict be-
tween India’s 966
million Hindu major-
ity and its 172 mil-
lion Muslims. But
the violence also
highlights another domestic fissure:
between Hindus who back religious
pluralism and their coreligionists
who are bent on asserting their su-
premacy in what they see as their
homeland.
This isn’t a new divide, though its
recent deepening could threaten In-
dia’s stability. For close to 100 years
Hindus have faced a choice between
the inclusiveness of Mahatma Gandhi
(1869-1948) and the tribal appeal of
Hindu nationalism’s chief ideologue,
Vinayak Savarkar (1883-1966). Sa-
varkar espoused the idea that India
belongs to followers of so-called In-
dic faiths, that is, those that origi-
nated in the subcontinent. This casts
Muslims and Christians as inherently
at odds with Indianness, no matter

how long they or their ancestors

have lived on Indian soil.

In Savarkar’s view, Muslim and

Christian Indians form a kind of fifth

column because their holy lands are

not the same as their fatherland. By

contrast, both Gandhi and India’s

first prime minister, Jawaharlal

Nehru, espoused civic nationalism,

which views all Indians as equal re-

gardless of their faith.

Long consigned to the margins of

national life, Savarkar’s ideas find

many takers in India today, particu-

larly in the ruling Bharatiya Janata

Party. But though the idea of civiliza-

tional conflict with the Abrahamic

faiths may appeal to die-hard Hindu

nationalists, it’s not clear that it offers

a viable way to govern a country in

which 1 in 5 Indians is not Hindu.

The recent violence in Delhi—the

worst outbreak in the city since anti-

Sikh riots killed more than 3,

people in 1984—is a manifestation of

this ideological schism. Muslims are

participants in the debate, and bore

the brunt of the violence, but the

real battleground is among Hindus

for the simple reason that they make

up four-fifths of India’s population.

If Savarkar’s ideas prevail among the

majority, India will cease to be a

land that strives to treat its minori-

ties fairly. It will become more like

the rest of the subcontinent, where

religious minorities often live on the

majority’s sufferance.

Ironically, the controversial citizen-

ship law that sparked the bloodletting

in Delhi, which coincided with a visit

by President Trump, recognizes the

shoddy record of minority rights in

India’s near abroad. The law, enacted

in December, for the first time intro-

duces a religious test for citizenship

by allowing followers of six faiths

from Muslim majority Pakistan, Af-

ghanistan and Bangladesh who ar-

rived in India before 2015 to fast-track

naturalization. The law pointedly ex-

cludes all Muslims—including Paki-

stan’s persecuted Ahmadiyya Muslims

and Shia Hazara minority.

Since December, Muslims, secu-

larists and students have protested

the law. They fear that combined

with a proposed (and currently de-

ferred) national register of citizens,

the new law will force Indian Mus-

lims to produce documentation

proving their citizenship, or risk dis-

enfranchisement or being herded

into detention camps. Such docu-

mentation isn’t ubiquitous in India

and it’s likely that legal citizens will

be caught up in the fray. Such a pro-

cess, riddled with sloppiness, incon-

sistencies and casual cruelty, is al-

ready under way in the northeastern

state of Assam.

In the run up to the violence, BJP

leaders gave incendiary speeches

and compared the protesters to trai-

tors who deserved to be shot. Skir-

mishes between stone-throwing

Hindu and Muslim mobs quickly de-

volved into deadly violence in which

dozens of people were hacked,

burned and shot dead. Mobs razed

scores of small businesses. Thou-

sands of people have fled their

homes in fear.

BJP supporters point out that

both Hindus and Muslims suffered in

the violence. A rough count based on

the official list of victims’ names

suggests that more than a quarter of

the 44 killed were Hindu. In some

neighborhoods, Hindus suffered dis-

proportionately at the hands of Mus-

lim mobs. Those killed included a po-

lice constable and a young

intelligence officer.

All this may be true, but no rea-

sonable person can view this as a

contest of equals. The police in

Delhi, overwhelmingly Hindu and un-

der the command of the BJP’s hard-

line Home Minister, Amit Shah, did

not even pretend to be evenhanded.

In some places they reportedly stood

down instead of confronting mobs.

In others, there’s evidence they ac-

tively abetted Hindu rioters.

A sensible government would

work out a way to show compassion

for persecuted religious minorities in

India’s neighborhood without stok-

ing fears among Indian Muslims. A

responsible ruling party would not

confuse legitimate political protest

with treason. But that would mean

rejecting Savarkar’s pernicious idea

that Hindus are somehow more In-

dian than those who hold other

faiths—something Prime Minister

Modi appears unwilling to do.

A resurgence of the idea

that India belongs to those

of ‘Indic faith’ drove the

riots, which killed 44.

EAST IS
EAST
By Sadanand
Dhume

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The Case for a Big Coronavirus Stimulus

G

iven the mounting economic
risks posed by the spread of
the novel coronavirus, Con-
gress should act swiftly but thought-
fully to pass fiscal stimulus. This
would be in addition to continuing to
provide ample funding for medical
research, testing, prevention and
treatment. The stimulus’s total cost
would be about $350 billion, but
could be larger or smaller depending
on how the economic situation un-
folds. Congress should design it to be
accelerated, big, comprehensive and
dynamic.

• Accelerated.In normal times it
  takes a year or more for monetary
  policy to have its maximum eco-
  nomic impact. The Federal Reserve
  made a bold and correct move with
  its 50-basis-point rate cut, but no
  one knows how well or quickly it will
  work.
  Most likely, the lower interest
  rates and depreciated dollar will pro-
  vide only modest relief after a sub-
  stantial lag. Fiscal policy can act
  much more quickly by getting money

into people’s hands within weeks or

months.

• Big.The economy faces an un-
  usual degree of uncertainty around
  several factors: the fatality and
  transmission rates of the virus, the
  timing of a vaccine, the direct and in-
  direct economic effects of the epi-
  demic, and the difficulty of making
  economic policy in a low-interest-
  rate environment experiencing an
  unusual shock to both supply and
  demand.
  Amid uncertainty, policy makers
  must weigh the risks of overreacting
  against the risks of underreacting.
  The likelihood that history judges
  the economic response to corona-
  virus as too little and too late is
  much higher than the converse. If
  the economic shock is small and
  stimulus proves to be unnecessary,
  its negative effects are likely to be
  small. But if the shock is bigger and
  policy makers fail to act now, it will
  be harder to reverse the economic
  damage. With the federal govern-
  ment able to borrow at a negative
  real interest rate, doing too much is
  a minimal risk.


• Comprehensive.It is critical that
  any stimulus strengthen the social
  safety net, which will be strained if
  people lose jobs, get furloughed, or
  have to stay home without pay. In
  addition, states and localities will
  need relief to deal with any strains
  on their budgets from a combination
  of emergency spending and falling
  tax revenues. Without relief, states
  could be forced to slash spending,
  which would cut against the effects
  of federal stimulus and potentially
  compromise states’ public-health
  response.


• Dynamic.The response should
  be contingent on economic condi-
  tions, targeting the hardest-hit areas
  of the economy and growing auto-
  matically if the economy weakens
  more than expected.
  President Trump has floated the
  idea of a payroll-tax cut, but this has
  significant drawbacks. It would be
  too slow and dispersed to substan-
  tially stimulate the economy, as
  households would receive only a
  modest benefit every pay period. The
  distributional effects are worrisome
  as well: A one-year payroll tax cut of

2% of income would provide up to a

$5,508 tax cut to a high-income cou-

ple, only $500 to a single parent get-

ting by on $25,000 a year, and noth-

ing for a worker placed on leave

without pay. This isn’t the fairest or

most efficient way to increase aggre-

gate demand.

Instead, Congress should pass a

simple one-time payment of $1,

to every adult who is a U.S. citizen or

a taxpaying U.S. resident, and $

to every child who meets the same

criteria. This is similar to, but some-

what more generous than, what Pres-

ident Bush did in 2008. Back then,

electronic deposits were made avail-

able within three months. Some con-

sumers might spend the money right

away to meet rent if they lose their

regular paycheck; others might have

stronger balance sheets and spend

the money at whatever uncertain

date the virus is contained.

The law should also specify that

the payments would continue in 2021

and beyond if the unemployment

rate rises to 5.5% and remains there

or higher. Hopefully this will not

happen, but if it does, the money will

be needed.

The comprehensive and dynamic

response should also include exten-

sions of unemployment insurance

and increased Medicaid matching

for states. These would be passed

pre-emptively, so that they could

trigger automatically in states

where unemployment rates rise.

These steps would be similar to

those taken by Presidents Bush and

Obama to fight the 2001 and

2007-09 recessions. The advantage

of these policies is that they would

automatically account for the virus’s

differing effects on states, depend-

ing on how it spreads and how reli-

ant state economies are on virus-

sensitive industries like tourism.

Moreover, they should be made per-

manent to increase U.S. prepared-

ness for the next shock to the econ-

omy, whatever its cause.

In addition, measures to address

unpaid leave and children going

without school lunches would also

make sense. Much of this has been

done before in targeted ways for lo-

calized disasters.

Scientists are working tirelessly to

develop a vaccine. It would be nice if

there existed a comparably targeted

medicine for economic policy makers

to administer. Disruptions from in-

terrupted supply chains, a potentially

rapid shift in consumption patterns,

and loss of credit are unique and

challenging. But these are no reasons

to delay putting out a generally ap-

plicable economic medicine that

would help in any downturn.

Mr. Furman, a professor of prac-

tice at Harvard, was chairman of the

White House Council of Economic

Advisers, 2013-17.

By Jason Furman

Congress should send you

$1,000—and another $

for each of your children—

as soon as possible.

French President Emmanuel Ma-

cron speaking on Feb. 18 (translation

by Matthew King):

In the republic, it is not accept-

able to refuse to shake hands with a

woman because she is a woman. In

the republic, we cannot accept that

someone refuses to be cared for or

educated by someone because she is

a woman. In the republic, it is not

acceptable to drop out of school for

reasons of religion or belief. In the

republic, one cannot demand virgin-

ity certificates to get married. In the

republic, we must never accept that

the laws of religion can be superior

to the laws of the Republic....

And now that I have said all this,

this isn’t a question of stigmatizing

any religion. And what we have to

do is not, as I have sometimes heard

from some people, a program

against Islam. That would be a pro-

found mistake. There are millions of

fellow citizens, French citizens, who

... believe in Islam and who live ac-
cording to the laws of the republic
and who want to live as French citi-
zens. What we must fight is the sep-
aratism I have just mentioned and
all the practices I have just men-
tioned with great calm, with great
determination, with great respect.
...Therisk is that the whole society
will say “the problem is our Muslim
fellow citizens,” which would be a
huge mistake. But this Islamist sepa-
ratism is incompatible with freedom
and equality, incompatible with the
indivisibility of the republic and the
necessary unity of the nation.

Notable & Quotable: Macron