On election night in 2008, my twitter feed and RSS reader were full of jubilant liberals proclaiming that "It's 1932!" Time Magazine famously photoshopped Obama into a new FDR on their cover.
Each party has their sweeping historic narrative leading to eventual triumph, and this slotted neatly into what you I'd call the Ur-Myth, the Creation Story, of the modern Democratic Party. In that heroic tale, before 1932, the earth was ruled by evil, Laissez-Faire Republicans who ruined the economy with their speculative excesses. The result was the Great Depression. Thankfully, the people saw that Republicans had made the earth a terrible place, and they annointed elected FDR to make things right. With a combination of massive government spending and tight regulation, FDR was able to put things right, to restore balance in the world.
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