Trump keeps promising a downfall that never happens

If the election does not go in his favor, the economy will collapse, Christmas will be cancelled and America as we know it will be “finished,” Donald Trump promised in the run-up to the 2020 election.

Of course, that campaign did not go in his favor, and none of the disasters Trump predicted have come to pass under Joe Biden's presidency. But that hasn't stopped Trump from repeating some of the same dire omens for a Kamala Harris presidency.

“If he's elected, the stock market will crash,” Trump said in October 2020 during his only debate with Biden. “If he's elected, we're going to see a depression like we've never seen before.”

The depression never happened. Stock prices rose during Biden’s presidency. But Trump recently predicted that a Harris victory would lead to “a massive [stock] market downturn” and “a 1929-style depression.”

In 2020, he said in a tweet: “This election is a choice between a TRUMP RECOVERY or a BIDEN DEPRESSION.”

In 2024, he said on Truth Social: “VOTERS HAVE A CHOICE – TRUMP’S PROSPERITY OR THE KAMALA CRASH AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF 2024.”

Predicting the future is inherently difficult, and it's normal for politicians of all stripes to rant about how the other side might win. But Trump's penchant for exaggeration, hubris, and black-and-white claims has made him a particularly inaccurate Nostradamus.

The Trump team did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

“[I]“If Joe Biden ever became president,” Trump tweeted in 2020, “our country would COLLAPSE!”

“If we don’t win,” he told New Hampshire voters in 2024, “I think our country is finished.”

Four years ago, he warned voters in Michigan: “A vote for Biden will mean the total annihilation of your auto industry.”

On Wednesday, he warned voters in Michigan: “If I don't win, within two to three years you will no longer have an auto industry. Then it will all be over.”

As Election Day 2020 approached, Trump's predictions about life under a Biden presidency became more apocalyptic.

With the Covid-19 pandemic raging, Trump told his supporters that Biden had plans to impose a “comprehensive shutdown” across the country and keep the country locked down to implement his “plan to destroy the American dream.”

“If you vote for Biden, it means no kids in school, no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas and no Fourth of July celebrations,” he said at a rally in Goodyear, Arizona.

“If he comes to power,” he said at a rally in Nevada, “the Christmas season will be canceled.”

Of course, Biden has not imposed any such lockdowns, and according to the National Retail Federation, holiday shopping increased in each year of his presidency, reaching a record high last year.

In his speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention, Trump called Biden a “Trojan horse of socialism” who would “give violent anarchists free rein” to “completely smash and destroy the American way of life.”

“Make no mistake: If you put Joe Biden in power, the radical left will defund police departments across America,” Trump warned, predicting that Biden had plans to “immediately release 400,000 criminals onto your streets and into your neighborhoods.”

In fact, crime has gone down and Biden signed a law to increase police funding.

“When the left comes to power, they will destroy the suburbs, confiscate your guns and appoint judges who will wipe out your Second Amendment and other constitutional freedoms,” Trump said in his speech at the convention.

The suburbs still exist, as does the Second Amendment, supported by a conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

In a speech at The Villages, a huge retirement community in Florida, Trump predicted that Biden would “dismantle your police departments, dismantle our borders, confiscate your guns and end religious freedom.”

Almost four years after Biden took office, the U.S.-Mexico border is still a problem, but it also remains.

Even God is not safe from a Biden presidency, Trump warned.

“If Joe Biden is elected,” he said on Fox News, “religion will not continue, OK?” In another interview with the network, he said Biden would “take away your guns, your oil, your God.” In Ohio, Trump said Biden was “against God” and that his election would “harm the Bible, harm God.”

Both domestic oil production and arms sales reached record highs under Biden, a practicing Catholic who attended church regularly during his tenure in the White House.

But Trump's prophecies went further, including disturbing visions of an America completely intimidated by its rivals.

“If I don't win the election, China will dominate the United States. They will have to learn to speak Chinese,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in August 2020.

The number of American college students learning Chinese has actually declined under Biden after peaking in 2016.

Trump even predicted that if he lost the election, he might have to leave the country or withdraw from public life.

“If I lose to him, I don't know what to do. I'm never going to talk to you again,” he told rallygoers in North Carolina four years ago. “You're never going to see me again.”

In Georgia, a few days before the election, Trump said he would be so embarrassed to lose to Biden that he “may have to leave the country – I don't know.”

But that is out of the question, Trump predicted confidently. He told his supporters in Wisconsin that his election was in principle a sure thing: “We will only lose this election if it is rigged.”

In fact, Trump lost the election and did not flee the country.

This year, as Trump faces Biden's vice president, he repeated some of the same dire predictions for the future if he doesn't win.

While Biden is a “Trojan horse of socialism,” a press release from Trump's campaign team last month said: “Kamala Harris is a Trojan horse for government-destroying spending, communist price controls and open borders.”

In a fundraising video, Trump claimed that Harris also wanted to ban Christmas. “She doesn't want a Merry Christmas,” Trump said. “No, we're going to have a Merry Christmas, just like we did seven years ago for everybody. We brought it back. It was in big trouble, but we brought it back.”

The suburbs would also be doomed if Harris won, Trump told rally attendees in Tucson, Arizona, last week, warning that Harris' team wanted to “abolish the suburbs.”

“I will save America’s suburbs,” he said.

He insists that if elected, Harris will “defund the police on day one,” confiscate guns and shut down fossil fuel production. “If she wins the election, the day after the election,” he said in the debate, “there will be no oil and no fossil fuels.”

Throughout his 2024 campaign, he portrayed the election as an existential battle for the future of the country. At his first campaign rally last year, he called the election “the final battle,” invoking the depiction of the end of the world in the Book of Revelation and saying Harris would “destroy” America “just like she destroyed San Francisco, just like she destroyed California.”

And repeating his false prophecy from 2020, Trump has told his supporters that this election, too, is a sure thing and that the only way he can lose is if the election is rigged.

“The only way they can beat us is if they cheat,” he said in Las Vegas this summer.

“We have all the votes we need,” he promised his supporters in North Carolina last month.

Whether this prediction comes true or not remains to be seen.