Ever heard of the "butterfly effect?" Apparently there's a movie by the name with, like, Ashton Kutcher or someone like that...I don't know, I haven't seen it. But, the main concept of the term "butterfly effect" lies in the idea that if one went back in time and changed the tiniest thing about the past, the future could be immensely different due to the domino-like changes that are brought by the initial change. It gets one thinking about the tiny happenings within recent history that may have led to some of the most groundbreaking events in the current world.

I'm applying this idea to the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States.

Let's go back to 1988. A very popular video of Trump that has surfaced since he announced his candidacy in June of 2015 is a clip from his interview on the Oprah Winfrey Show. At one point in the interview, Oprah asks Trump if he would ever consider running for the office of the presidency. He responds with, "Probably not..." but later states that he would consider it in the case that the state of America "got so bad" that he needed to.

Well, assuming that he kept the same logic for 30 years, one can only assume that the presidency of Barack Obama, which Trump has criticized harshly on numerous occasions over the years, was the straw that broke the camel's back. Obama is what is "so bad" that Trump felt the need to run and rescue America from the direction Obama was setting it in. So... What if Obama was never elected? For the sake of this article, we should assume that had Obama never been president, Trump would never have been elected, either.

Well, then we'd have to go back to 2008. Barack Obama vs. John McCain. Joe Biden vs. *gulp* Sarah Palin. We may never know if John McCain would've won if he had chosen a different running mate, but there's a chance it's true. Sarah Palin's Sarah-Palin-y ideas, personality, and form of self-conduction made her, and McCain, look less favorable to the American voter. A lot less favorable. Did it cost McCain the election? Probably not.

But, maybe.

In the case that it was her fault, we can place the blame of Trump onto Sarah Palin. But, why stop there? We can move forward to John McCain's campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, who found Palin, the governor of Alaska at the time, as the female McCain needed to balance the Republican ticket by attracting more female voters, a demographic they were lacking in the polls. He didn't know much about her at the time. He was basically Googling female American politicians and found her to be the most attractive to the American voter. He could've chosen from a number of other female Republicans, but Palin, somehow, stuck out. She wasn't just some senator. She was a full-on governor, which is basically like a mini-president.

How did Sarah Palin become governor? Well, simply put, the people of Alaska liked her. So, what if Alaska had never been a part of the United States? Believe it or not, in a close alternate universe, this is the reality. In 1867, Alaska was purchased from the Russian government by the United States. The Treaty was signed by then-Secretary of State, William Seward. If William Seward had never signed the Treaty with Russia, Alaska wouldn't be a state, and Sarah Palin wouldn't be an American governor, and she would not have ruined John McCain's presidential run, and Obama would not have been elected, and the country wouldn't have gotten "so bad" that Donald Trump decided to run for the presidency.

So, we could blame it on the existence of William Seward. Had his parents never met, they never would have done the baby-making dance, and Seward would never have been born. According to Wikipedia, Seward's father, Samuel Swayze Seward, met his wife, Mary, in New York. This happened after settling in New York in 1800 to work and study medicine at Columbia University.

Columbia University made a mistake in admitting Sam Seward.

And, there you have it. The reasons behind Donald Trump's upcoming presidency can be traced back to the 1800s. If Columbia University had never accepted Samuel Seward, he would have never gone to New York, he would never have met his future-wife, Mary, and, hence, would never have had William. If William had never existed, the Treaty with Russia would never have been signed, and Alaska would still be a Russian territory. If Alaska was still a Russian territory, Sarah Palin would never have become the American governor of Alaska, and would never have been eligible to be John McCain's running mate. If John McCain had chosen a different running mate, then perhaps he could have prevented Barack Obama from becoming the president. If Barack Obama had stayed out of the White House, then America would have stayed just fine in the tiny, orange eyes of Donald Trump. If this was the case, then the host of "The Apprentice" would never have felt the need to step up and run for the presidency, and the words "President Trump" would not be flashing on every TV screen and on the cover of every newspaper in the world.

Alright, I'm just glad we've finally established that. Thanks a lot, Columbia.