As a comedy writer, I tell myself lies to make myself feel better about my life decisions. “That two-star review reads more like a four!” “If I lived in the 1960s I’d definitely have been in Monty Python!” “My wife wouldn’t love me more if I were a lawyer!” The biggest of these is one I pull out at my most insecure (usually when surrounded by people with real jobs) – “comedy can change the world”. At my most pretentious, I believe that satire brought down Margaret Thatcher, that Jon Stewart stopped the worst excesses of the Bush administration, and that one day I will write a Twitter joke so nailed on that the ERG decides to cancel Brexit. Up until last weekend, this question of whether comedy could change the world was just a hypothetical one. But then, on Sunday, the comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy became the president of Ukraine, and it all became frighteningly more real.

Admittedly, Zelenskiy is not your average comedian. He stars in Servant of the People, a massive sitcom about a teacher who accidentally becomes president after a video of him ranting about political corruption goes viral. It’s basically The West Wing if Jonathan Pie was President Bartlet – and yes, I did need to take a shower after typing that. Zelenskiy registered Servant of the People as a political party last year, and it’s tempting to think this whole presidential bid is just a PR stunt that has got wildly out of hand. It’s like if Top Gear’s Cenotaph stunt had somehow ended up with Chris Evans becoming foreign secretary. The big question for me is whether Zelenskiy will star in another season of the show while president. Every leader needs a hobby, and honestly, is starring in a meta-sitcom that blurs the lines between fiction and reality that much weirder than Theresa May’s walking holidays?

On a superficial level, this seems like one of those “boy, aren’t they wacky!” stories – see also ex-Australian MP Tony Abbott eating an onion like an apple or Italian politics after Silvio Berlusconi took office. But Zelenskiy’s rise doesn’t feel so alien. Sky News, the number one channel for condescending landlords, told its audience laughingly that the situation in Ukraine was like Ant McPartlin becoming prime minister of the UK.

It’s a comparison that didn’t stand up to much scrutiny: partially because Ant would surely rule the country with Dec as two separate fiefdoms (PJopolis and Duncantopia), but mainly because we’ve already had our own Zelenskiys, just on a smaller scale. Boris Johnson made his name off comic appearances on Have I Got News For You, rising to mayor of London with nothing more than a stupid haircut and a propensity to say “wiff-waff”. One of the favourites to become the next prime minister, Jacob Rees-Mogg, is basically just a meme in a Jack the Ripper outfit. Mark Francois, several slices of reformed ham that came to life, has become a laughing stock by spouting nonsense – but already the Telegraph is talking about him as the next Tory leader.

Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump is not just the joke but the comedian telling it – as John Oliver recently observed, he has the cadence of a stand-up and can be intentionally (and infuriatingly) funny. Laughter is no longer just a medicine, but a poison, allowing untrustworthy people to rise to the top.

For critiquing the worst excesses and bare hypocrisy of an opponent, comedy is a useful weapon. But a weapon is all it is. As Hannah Gadsby’s stand-up special Nanette points out, a joke is not a story, but a trick – a tool to build tension just for the purpose of breaking it. Similarly, the politician-comedian is not interested in building a vision for the future, but on denigrating everything that came before. Any tangible policy can be attacked, so everything Zelenskiy promises comes coated in irony, ready to be dismissed as “just a joke” as soon as anyone challenges it.

The comedian-politician is an empty vessel of destruction, usually backed by mysterious forces that hide behind the humour for their own purposes. Zelenskiy has links back to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, the owner of the channel on which Servant of the People airs, and it’s hard to believe that Kolomoisky isn’t anticipating at least something in return for the man he’s made president. They may act like a breath of fresh air, but the politician-comedian is just another layer of ironic corruption, chasing out the last semblance of ideology from our politics. The fear is that Zelenskiy is not the anomaly, but the logical conclusion. Comedy has changed the world: it’s doused everything in cynicism, replacing hope with a hollow laugh.

•Jack Bernhardt is a comedy writer and occasional performer