In the 2000 episode, Lisa becomes the nation’s first “straight female” president, while brother Bart has slacked away his life. And from the Oval Office, she says, “As you know, we’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump.”

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“The story was really about Bart saving Lisa’s presidency,” episode writer Dan Greaney tells The Post’s Comic Riffs. “Lisa has a problem beyond her ability” — the kind that only Bart can solve.

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But how did the series arrive at a President Trump? Greaney explains that the real-estate mogul was just the right comedic fit at the time, and notes that they needed a celebrity name that would sound slyly absurdist.

Besides, Greaney says, “He seems like a ‘Simpsons’-esque figure — he fits right in there, in an over-the-top way.

“But now that he’s running for president, I see that in a much darker way,” the Emmy-winning writer-producer said early this year. “He seemed kind of lovable in the old days, in a blowhard way.”

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The Harvard-sprung Greaney makes no great claim of political prescience, noting, “I never would have predicted this campaign.”

Still, with tongue not entirely planted in cheek, Greaney — who also wrote the famed rodeo anthem scene in “Borat” — accepts some of the collective blame for allowing a Trump to flourish as a candidate.

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“I blame us — I blame the culture of comedy,” he tells Comic Riffs. Greaney posits that the movie “Animal House,” which “mocked the norms of decent behavior,” helped counterculture viewpoints launch into the American comedic mainstream, thus fostering such establishment-mocking shows as “The Simpsons.” Perhaps all this mockery, he says, somehow gave rise to an “anti-political establishment” candidate like Trump.

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“We seem to have blown it up,” says Greaney, laughing, of the old social norm. “No ‘Animal House,’ no Trump.”

So to take “The Simpsons” episode one step further: Since Lisa becomes a historic woman president following Trump, does that mean the show was prognosticating a Hillary Clinton presidency?

“Lisa is [age] 8 on the show, and she would have to be at least 35 to be president,” Greaney says with a clever, knowing dodge. “So 27 years is time for a lot of other presidents.”

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And since that 2000 episode could yet prove prescient, did Greaney believe Trump would win?

“No, I don’t think Trump can win,” the writer said in March. “But the show is a collective, so our collective mind might have a different answer.”