A professor who predicted Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election detailed on Tuesday the treatment he received from peers after correctly forecasting the results.
Allan Lichtman, distinguished professor of history at American University, was one of the only prominent figures last fall to accurately predict Hillary Clinton would lose to Donald Trump in the presidential election.
In a Tuesday interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough asked Lichtman to describe how others reacted after the professor publicly issued his prediction.
“How much abuse did you get for predicting back in the fall that Donald Trump was going to get elected president when just about everybody else was saying he was going to lose?” Scarborough asked.
“People were wondering if I got my degree from mail order back then because I went so against the conventional wisdom,” Lichtman replied. “But that’s why I was able to be right.”
Lichtman, who has correctly forecasted the winner of every election since 1984, continued, “I’m at American University in the heart of liberal Washington D.C., nobody would talk to me, they’d make signs when they saw me coming, they’d protect themselves.”
The professor also relayed a story where one person threatened to call the president of the school to have his job revoked over the prediction.
Now, Lichtman is promoting his new book “The Case for Impeachment,” predicting it is “very likely” President Trump will be forced out of office. While his latest publication is likely enjoying a warmer reception in academia, it is notable that one of the few people to accurately predict the presidential election was ostracized in higher education for being correct.
That an academic with a record as strong as Lichtman was shunned for sharing an uncomfortable prediction based on a highly respected historical system should tell you exactly how wrong his peers in higher education were about Donald Trump (along with most people). Even from the lips of someone they should trust, the idea that Trump would defeat Clinton was so improbable and unacceptable, they refused to even entertain the possibility.
Rather than seeking to have Lichtman fired, people should be wondering why one of the few professors to get it right was treated so wrong.
This article has been updated to reflect that Lichtman did not accurately predict the winner of the popular vote in 2016.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
