Hitler and Trump: history repeats itself ‘first as tragedy, then as farce’

Hegel wrote that “all great world-historic facts and personages appear twice.” It was Karl Marx who said that Hegel forgot to add that these repeating events happen “first as tragedy, then as farce”. You know, like Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump.

The script goes like this. A right-wing party is created or taken over by a charismatic populist. Tick. He mesmerises half the country with a constant shower of nationalist