Karl Marx, who is just as much an authority on these things as any of the talking heads on the cable news channels, famously said that history always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. He was talking about Napoleon, but the principle seems to apply just about everywhere you look. Yesterday history once again repeated itself with a new world leader pretend leader: George W. Bush.
But to truly understand what happened yesterday, you have to flip-flop Marx’s argument: the presidential election has repeated itself, but the first time in 2000 it was farce. This time around, it’s tragedy.