The explosive dawn of the Donald Trump presidency is energising comedians and satirists as TV ratings boom, shows proliferate and top talents vie to portray the commander-in-chief as a buffoon.

Into the crowded market dives a new offering, The President Show, starring Trump impersonator Anthony Atamanuik as the Republican leader broadcasting his own reality show from the Oval Office.

The weekly program, which made its début Thursday on Comedy Central, caricatures Mr. Trump as a child-like fool bent on bypassing the mainstream media, spliced with advice from a liberal pundit and a trip to New York where wife Melania has changed the locks.

“I have the power to destroy any country on earth, but I promise you it’ll be America First,’ says Mr. Atamanuik in character, repeating Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan and reinforcing the liberal stereotype of the President as an ignorant blowhard.

But to win the ratings war there’s stiff competition. In the weekly market, there is Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on TBS, the first feminist political satire show on mainstream U.S. television; Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO; and the long-running and most-widely watched comedy show Saturday Night Live on NBC.

On weeknights, there is The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS, whose satirical tone has overtaken rival NBC entertainer Jimmy Fallon in the ratings; and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Comedy Central.

“Right now, satire sees itself as more important than it has been in a very long time,” says Dannagal Young, associate professor communication at the University of Delaware.

“In recent memory, I don’t think we have seen a time that is as frightening, especially for the left, as this moment.”

Way to cope

If ratings and advertising sales are up, so too are career fortunes.

Alec Baldwin has swapped headlines about tussling with paparazzi for rave reviews for his Trump impersonation on SNL that portrays the president as an idiot or a pawn. Melissa McCarthy’s impersonation of the White House spokesman, also on SNL, reportedly riled the President and has driven headlines.

Comedians say there are rich pickings in an administration that has defied so many norms, from Mr. Trump refusing to fully divest from his businesses to concerns about nepotism and Russian meddling in the election.

Satire “has the ability to help people cope,” said Stephen Groening, assistant professor in the department of comparative literature, cinema and media at the University of Washington.

The ability to laugh, get perspective and enjoy the fact that other people find times “challenging and absurd, has value,” he says.

Ms. Bee, Mr. Oliver and Mr. Noah take a more nuanced, issue-driven approach, woven with righteous anger and a call to arms that urges viewers to call their senator, protest or to donate to organisations.

‘Stand-up comedians are increasingly taking a political activist, public intellectual role,” says Maggie Hennefeld, who teaches cultural studies and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota.