Krugman refers to the 2008 election as between a modern-day FDR and Grover Cleveland.
Question: How will this age be remembered? Paul Krugman: Well certainly it will be the second gilded age, and it already is by the numbers. The only question really, I guess, is how long. If it can be . . . If we get the kinds of policies I’d like to see, we could . . . Say the second gilded age really lasted from 1980 to 2009, right? And then it . . . it gradually wound down and became a new progressive era. I hope that’s right. It could be that . . . that they go on much longer. One of the things I say is we’ll . . . We’re about to elect a new president. It will probably be a Democrat. Are we about to elect FDR? Or are we about to elect Grover Cleveland? So we will find out.