Except it's more optimistic than that. Similarly to the 1930's-40's, freedom/democratic government hobbles across the finish line in a way that suggests Millennialist predestination to many.
In the current era, it's somewhat remarkable that things didn't get anywhere near as bad as the 1930's in the aftermath of 2008, but the problem is that it's not obviously getting any better. Even the desperate are now pretty far away from the ancestral standard of desperation. So Romney fell flat, and Obama never got his 1936. You don't get much populist rage from people with electricity, cars and computers.
Well, the Great Recession was caused by repealing parts of the New Deal like Glass-Stegall. I have no doubt that the Great Recession would have been worse than the Great Depression if all of the New Deal had been dismantled.
