For everybody upset with the results of last night's election, it may seem ridiculous to look to a show like The Simpsons for any semblance of optimism. And it is ridiculous. But the reality is that's kind of where we're at right now, so let's just go with it. You may have already read that 16 years ago, The Simpsons forecast a President Trump in the flash-forward episode, "Bart to the Future." In 2000 it was a joke on a silly animated comedy; today, it's a reality.
But there's another prediction in "Bart to the Future" worth noting, as Vanity Fair points out. In a glimpse into Lisa's future, we see her growing up to become The President — who takes over after Trumps' term to clean the mess up. "As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump," Lisa tells her staff from the Oval Office.
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In the mind of the man who wrote the episode, Dan Greaney, the fact that Lisa becomes President after Trump is significant. "The important thing is that Lisa comes into the presidency when America is on the ropes, and that is the condition left by the Trump presidency," he told The Hollywood Reporter back in March, when it looked like Trump was likely to become the GOP nominee. "What we needed was for Lisa to have problems that were beyond her fixing, that everything went as bad as it possibly could, and that's why we had Trump be president before her."
In other words, things had to hit rock bottom first. So if you believe that The Simpsons predicted a Trump presidency, then maybe it's worth putting faith in this prediction too.
Here's part of the episode; Skip to 2:15 to see Lisa taking the lead.