I know some people will not be able to remember, but in the 1980's there was a very popular satire show called "Spitting Image," where puppets in the shape of the real life leaders and the celebrities of the time were depicted, usually in a very unflattering light. The two biggest stars were the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the President of the USA Ronald Reagan.
It was at a time when the left wing Liberal agenda had nearly ruined this country and Jimmy Carter the previous Democratic President had proven something of a disaster in America.
The Conservatives and Republicans were rolling back the more extreme and ruinous policies and the left were in a fury, as they always seem to be. Thatcher and Reagan were slaughtered by the satirists of the time, including through one very funny sketch that was ongoing and called "The Presidents Brain is Missing." Reagan was portrayed as a near senile incompetent who was responsible for all the world's woes, a racist, fascist and the butt of every joke. Move on three and a half decades and now here's Donald Trump and he is loathed and blamed every bit as much as Reagan ever was by everyone slightly to the left of the political centre.
The danger of pantomime villains
Creating this pantomime villain is great if you never have to answer for your actions or do anything important. It allows you to appear witty and wise. Corbyn and most Labour MP's are in this position as are Cable and his clan of Lib Dem protesters. Almost all the media in both countries and many celebrities are taking full value of this and shying at him as if he were on a ducking stool. But these people are largely irrelevant and it's a good job they are.
A real danger exists however when people with important roles to play take part in this type of activity. Presently the loathsome spoilt brat Kim Jong-un is busy using North Korea, the country he has enslaved and brainwashed, to develop a Hydrogen bomb as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles that it can be attached to.
This allows a bomb of many times the power of the devastating Nagasaki bomb, which along with the Hiroshima bomb brought a proud warrior nation to its knees within weeks, to potentially be fired against Japan again, South Korea or even the United States.
Can Trump be blamed for this? Incredibly some people are so blinded by loathing that they try to, but it is fatuous nonsense. The blame lies squarely with the spoilt nutcase and the world leaders that have appeased him and his family for decades and allowed him to develop nuclear capability with his seemingly lunatic finger on the trigger.
China has much to answer for. Its huge economy is always desperate for markets to sell to and as almost no one else will have anything to do with the little toad, North Korea is a very important source of revenue for China.
So it has used its might to protect and excuse Kim and his ancestors. But NATO have been no better. Let America deal with it. If Trump acts and wins he will be castigated as a war monger, if he acts and it goes badly it's his fault, if he doesn't act and it goes badly it's his fault. This is cowardly and unworthy of one of the few effective international organisations. We all know the United Nations are a useless talking shop. Kim has defied every one of their laws and they wring their hands and 'tut, tut.'
In the 80's the left had it wrong about Reagan, they seem to always have it wrong. He was a man who influenced people. At the time the world was also lucky to have Mikhail Gorbachev, possibly the greatest Russian leader ever.
I recently heard again Reagan's impassioned speech from the later end of the decade. It included the historical imploring, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall." It was delivered with intensity, presence and honesty and was as important as John F Kennedy's "I am a Berliner" speech, almost thirty years before about the same hateful wall. Between them Reagan and Gorbachev removed the wall and ended the communist/ socialist experiment that lasted four decades, caused heartache for millions and finally discredited those pathetic ideologies.
Now power must be used to protect us all
Trump is not Regan, but he is a man trying to accomplish things. The Liberals show that they have no answers and are irrelevant when they mock him but offer no solutions in their impotent way.
Perhaps they are as wrong about him as they were about Reagan. He may not be doing everything right but he is trying to deal with the results that decades of appeasement by more popular presidents including Clinton and Obama have caused. This appeasement has delivered the world to the point where an unstable cretin has the capacity to destroy tens of thousands of innocents. Trump needs support, most notably from all the leaders of the NATO countries and China. We do not need the UN reminding us of our duty to protect the citizens and armies of the country that supports Kim and threatens the world, or have them insisting we only use the economic sanctions that have failed so spectacularly and led to this point.
All the people with real power and responsibility must step up in a united fashion and tell the little bully in words he clearly understands that he must back off and comply with international demands, or be permanently removed from this earth. If he chooses defiance him, his dynasty and North Korea in its present form must be removed from power for ever by whatever means necessary.