A short history of failed doomsday predictions

Most fortune-tellers, prognosticators and would-be prophets are usually careful with specifics. But what happens when they’re caught out? It’s bad but not the end of the world, writes Chris Horrie

Trump superfan and chief election fraud proponent Mike Lindell (Getty)

It has not been a great couple of weeks for Mike Lindell, the engagingly bonkers Trump superfan, fundraiser and principal proponent of the entirely fictitious claim that the electronic voting machines used in the 2020 US presidential election had been tampered with, denying Trump the keys to the Oval Office. First, a court in New York gave the company that makes the machines permission to begin a libel action, which, if successful, will completely bankrupt Lindell. Secondly, a firm, biblical-style prophecy which Lindell made that Trump would be reinstated as president on the highly specific and auspicious date of 13 August 2021 failed to come to pass, resulting in public humiliation in front of an audience of millions.

Earlier this year Lindell said he had somehow obtained packets of data, meaning computer code, taken from communications between electronic voting machines during the 2020 election.

“By the morning of Friday 13th, it will be the talk of the world,” Lindell told a cable TV channel: “People will be saying ‘hurry up, let’s get this election pulled down, let’s right the right, let’s get these Communists out of… erm… y’know… they’re takin’ over, an’ when I say that they’ll… er… tip off the people that were involved’.”