In an alternate universe, everyone’s favourite Democrat Bernie Sanders is nervously awaiting the results of the US presidential election to find out if he’s about to take the title off the incumbent president, Donald Trump. But in this universe, he’s a psychic.
Let me explain: a video from October 23 is currently being shared online, which sees Sanders perfectly predict the current election saga. In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, the former presidential hopeful outlines what he thinks will happen on election night, accurately forecasting every detail, from the delay due to postal votes to Trump’s accusations of fraud.
“For reasons which I don’t have the time to get into tonight,” says Sanders, “you’re going to have a situation, I suspect, in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, other states, where they are going to be receiving huge amounts of mail-in ballots. Unlike states like Florida or Vermont, they’re not able – for bad reasons – to begin processing those ballots until election day, or maybe when the polls close.”
Sanders goes on to explain that this will lead to several states dealing with the job of counting millions of postal votes. “Here is my worry,” he continues. “What polls show is that, for whatever reason, Democrats are more likely to use mail-in ballots. Republicans are more likely to walk into polling booths on election day.”
According to Sanders, this will lead to in-person votes being counted first, giving Trump an early lead and emboldening him to declare victory on television (it’s as if we’re all living in Sanders’ simulation). However, when postal ballots are counted over the next couple of days and Joe Biden wins more votes, Sanders predicts that Trump will say: “See, I told you the whole thing was fraudulent. I told you those mail-in ballots were crooked. We’re not going to leave office.”
As us mere mortals now know, that is exactly what’s currently happening. You can watch the full prediction video above, and read Dazed’s guide to what’s happened in the US election so far here. As we await the results, I’m heading over to Bernie’s to get an update from his crystal ball on whether I’ll still be depressed in 2021. BRB.