Bill Henderson (Indiana), A Post-Mortem in Four Charts:
Before drawing firm conclusions on the 2024 election and what to do next, take a clear-eyed view at what actually happened.
November 5 culminated several decades of economic, political, and social change. These changes gradually increased the electorate’s feelings of alienation and insecurity. When these feelings became sufficiently intense and widespread, more than 50% of voters rejected the governing elites in favor of a strongman. Therefore, what comes next is up to him.
Four charts illustrate the forces that produced this outcome. The underlying analysis comes from earlier Legal Evolution posts. So this is a cold take. Also, it’s not the usual longform. If you want the complete, unabridged analysis, click the hyperlinks to the original posts.
Economists, historians, and political scientists acknowledge that widening wealth inequality gives rise to populism and political instability. See Post 319 (collecting sources). Chart 1, originally published in Post 312, compares wealth inequality at the end of the Gilded Age to the present. …
The 1929 stock market collapse was followed by several years of rising unemployment, thus resulting in FDR’s landslide election in 1932 (electoral votes: Roosevelt 472, Hoover 59). President Roosevelt financed his New Deal policies with massive tax increases on the rich. As shown in Chart 2, high progressive tax rates were the conventional wisdom for the next 50 years. ,,, For a more detailed analysis, see Posts 319 & 350.
Chart 3 should make Democrats the most nauseous. It shows the change in average household net worth for four segments of the U.S. population: 0-50th percentile (i.e., half of all households), 50 -75th percentile (a quarter of households), 75-90th, and 90th to 100. … For a more detailed analysis, see Post 350.
Chart 4 is based on Patrick Deneen’s Regime Change: Toward a Post-Liberal Future (2023). Deneen is a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame best known for his book Why Liberalism Failed (2018). Praised by both conservative and liberal commentators … [F]or a deeper dive into stupendous self-deception and the possibility that Deneen may be right, see Post 350 (thread 2, part C).
What’s next?
That’s a personal question for each of us.
As mentioned at the outset, this is a cold take. For 15 years, I’ve taught legal ethics and professional responsibility. This body of law includes an affirmative duty on lawyers to “further the public’s understanding of and confidence in the rule of law” because “legal institutions in a constitutional democracy depend on popular participation and support to maintain their authority.” ABA Preamble, ¶6. Three years ago, I was so troubled by the aftermath of January 6, and therefore, what it seemed to require of lawyers, that I started digging for answers. This resulted in two years of learning and reflection, which I documented in a series of detailed essays that included the above four charts and accompanying conclusions.
In the last reflective essay, Post 350, published last December, I announced that I was shutting down a 20-year chapter in my professional career (research and writing on law firms, legal innovation, and lawyer development—all the original content of Legal Evolution—to redirect my efforts to building new infrastructure for the broken, byzantine, and unaffordable legal system for ordinary people. I reasoned that if my analysis was correct, it didn’t matter who won the 2024 election, as the consequences of further delay were intolerable.
The start-up costs have been formidable but worth it. Over the next few months, I’ll have several interesting PeopleLaw updates.
