Donald Trump predicts that if President Joe Biden is reelected in 2024, the result will be a bloodbath, World War III, "and everything else”—presumably meaning the basic human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, and mass hysteria.
This all sounds pretty bad. Except, this isn't the first time Trump made this kind of prediction. Rolling back the clock by four years, Trump really does seem to be looking through a glass darkly when it comes to the accuracy of his prognostications.
Trump’s predictions sound very similar to what he predicted would happen if Biden were elected at all. Before the 2020 election, Trump predicted that electing Biden would leave the U.S. a hellscape in which the government and stock markets had collapsed, crime ran rampant, the Constitution was shredded, and what remained of the economy was sunk into a bleak depression.
And he made one other prediction. One that, sadly, did not come true.
One of Trump’s most repeated predictions was that if Biden were elected in 2020, the stock market would crash. Instead, the market is way up, repeatedly setting new records. As of Monday, the Dow Jones Average was up over 25% from the day Biden was sworn in. The S&P 500 hit a new record the day Biden was inaugurated and hasn’t stopped reaching new highs ever since. For Americans whose retirements depend on the contents of an IRA or 401K account, Biden’s term has meant a more secure future and more control over their careers.
Trump predicted a "Biden depression" if he weren’t returned to the White House. Instead, Biden repeatedly delivered policies that allowed the U.S. to avoid a long-expected recession and maintain sustained growth even though economists had repeatedly predicted a downturn. While doing this, Biden also kept unemployment under 4% longer than any president has since the 1960s.
And Biden did all of that despite Trump losing 2.9 million jobs and leaving office with unemployment at 6.3%.
He also predicted that Biden would "destroy the suburbs," but suburbs made a surprise comeback, increasing in both population and in home values after years of decline.
And it wasn’t just the houses that made a big comeback. Demand for new retail space hit record highs under Biden as businesses came roaring back from the pandemic and existing businesses and startups feuded over space for expansion.
Trump predicted that "no one would be safe" in a country overrun by crime and dominated by "mob rule" after Biden destroyed the police and confiscated guns. Biden ripping up the Second Amendment and snatching all of the guns was another common Trump forecast. It didn’t happen, but gun sales have declined three years in a row. Americans still buy far too many guns, but overall sales are down sharply from the peak years under Trump, maybe because violent crime is also way down after surging under Trump. Murders jumped 30% under Trump in 2019 and 2020, but they’ve plummeted under Biden. Whether Trump wants to believe it or not, crime is way down.
In a confusing prediction, Trump said Biden would impose "Socialism Plus." No one is quite sure what Trump meant by that, but it apparently included ripping down statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Jesus. But even if no one knew what Trump was talking about, it’s clear that what Biden delivered was an Infrastructure Act bringing 15 million jobs and the CHIPS Act, which is continuing to generate a flood of new factories and manufacturing jobs.
Trump predicted that the U.S. would "collapse" because Biden wanted Americans to wear masks during the pandemic, but after over 1.1 million deaths, the evidence shows masks work. Higher death rates in red counties show that denying science is fatal. In terms of the future, these are both things the nation should remember as the threat of bird flu edges nearer.
Finally, Trump predicted that if Biden won, he "might have to leave the country." Sadly, that was no more accurate than his other predictions.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
