A year before Trump was first inaugurated in 2017 was the last time I felt motivated to quote Marx. Now I just can’t help quoting myself quoting him: “History repeats itself,” wrote Karl Marx in 1852, “first as tragedy, second as farce.” He was referring to Napoleon I and his nephew Louis Napoleon. One hundred …
I woke up shocked and scared, just like this, the morning after the 1980 Presidential election, when Ronald Reagan received 50.7% of the popular vote and nearly all the electoral votes, when Jimmy Carter got 41% and independent John Anderson 6.6%. I lived in a bubble of progressive consensus at the time, surrounded by people …