An excellent point. The phrase "history will repeat itself" is extremely broad and vague and often open to much interpretation.
The catch, is that libs point is that someone with that much power is "likely" to repeat history. Such a generalization may be true, given "history" and we know that the second person to "make history" is technically acting upon precedent. However, it is broad stroke of the logical brush to simply say:
history repeats itself.
It offers little, other than a snazzy catchy phrase, kinda like a rainbow, it looks pretty, but no one biological, chemical, or political component owns it.