Simpsons writer calls Trump presidency joke “a warning to America”

By Sam Barsanti | March 17, 2016 | 8:00pm

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At this point, it’s as much a cliché to say “The Simpsons did it first” as it is to say “The Simpsons isn’t as good as it used to be,” but that doesn’t make it any less bone-chilling when a line that the show intended as a joke ends up coming true. Everyone laughed when Homer created hamburger ear muffs (even though they had already been invented by Professor Frink, who perfected the pickle matrix), for example, but nobody thought it was very funny when actual hamburger ear muffs flooded the market back in 2010. There’s a different Simpsons prediction that’s more relevant now, though: In the episode “Bart To The Future” (season 11, so you might not have seen it on principle), Bart is shown a vision in which Lisa has been elected president. Unfortunately, the United States’ budget has been decimated by her predecessor, Donald Trump.

Ooh, did you feel that chill? The Simpsons did, in fact, predict that Donald Trump would be elected president, and now—16 years after that episode aired—Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican party’s nomination. The Hollywood Reporter caught up with the seer who wrote “Bart To The Future,” a prophet named Dan Greaney, and he says that the line about Trump being the president “was a warning to America,” adding that it “just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom” and that it was “consistent with the vision of America going insane.” All of that is actually pretty on the money for where America is right now, but if Trump does get elected, we can still look forward to President Lisa Simpson taking over after a few years of economic collapse. At least we know she won’t pack the Supreme Court with boys.