US elections: Did this Simpsons episode predict the 2024 outcome?

Let’s not kid ourselves – no one’s in a state of relaxation right now.  

With the US election hours away and the race being neck and neck, zen is in short supply – especially when you’re keeping up with the polls.  

However, maybe some will find solace in knowing that depending on the result, we may have the answer to an enduring question: Can The Simpsons truly predict the future?  

Indeed, the long-running animated sitcom The Simpsons has become notorious for some of its episodes and jokes becoming eerily accurate.  

Some choose to believe it’s a stranger-than-fiction power of “prediction”. 

Adhere to this or not, you can’t deny that the show’s art-anticipating-life precognitive powers have been eyebrow-raising over the years.  

There’s the 1990 episode that saw people protest the nudity of Michelangelo’s “David” - which took place in real life when a Florida school forced the resignation of its principalover complaints about a lesson featuring the statue; the 1994 episode 'Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy' that seems to have foretold the Barbie hysteria linked to the release of Greta Gerwig’s film and Donald Trump’s indictment; 1996’s ‘Homerpalooza’, which predicted that hip-hop outfit Cypress Hill were going to share a stage with the London Symphony Orchestra – something which materialised this year; 1998’s accurate prediction that Disney would buy 20th Century Fox... The list goes on.  

But perhaps the most infamous case is the 2000 episode ‘Bart To The Future’, which namedropped Donald Trump as having been POTUS.

It’s this episode that features Lisa as president. While in the Oval Office, she says: "As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump." 

The week after Trump became the 45th President of the United States in 2017, the recurring chalkboard gag at the start of the show read: “Being right sucks.” Their prediction became all too accurate when you consider that Trump’s administration oversaw the third-highest deficit increase of any president.  

The episode previously went viral when Kamala Harris became the first female US Vice President, as Lisa was wearing a very familiar purple suit, pearl necklace and pearl earrings...

The same episode is doing the rounds once more, as the prognostication already gained further validity when Trump announced his 2024 presidential run - the same year that The Simpsons had originally predicted. 

Fans are now choosing to believe that the episode’s already established soothsaying credentials must mean that Kamala Harris will win the upcoming election. 

"We all know that The Simpsons has this uncanny ability to predict the future," wrote one social media user. "In an episode, Lisa becomes president and she mainly wears [a] purple suit and pearls, similar to Kamala Harris's outfit in her vice president inauguration. Coincidence? I THINK NOT." 

Someone else added: "The Simpsons predict Kamala Harris will be President." 

"If The Simpsons ever really predicted the future, let it be this time," another commented. 

We’ll soon find out whether there aren't more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in Simpsons creator Matt Groening’s philosophy. 

And maybe this time, that chalkboard will read: “Being right rocks!”