The most popular variety of ‘joke’ currently sweeping social media goes something like this: ‘The world is facing imminent nuclear extinction because of a deranged, deluded, stupid dictator. Oh, and Kim Jong Un’s a worry too.’

Hilarious, right?

I mean, there’s nothing funnier than the thought of millions of people being vaporised by nuclear weapons.

Just ask the Japanese people of Hiroshima or Nagasaki how ‘amusing’ it can be to have one land on your city.

I’m all for dark humour in times of crisis, don’t get me wrong.

Sometimes it’s the only way to deal with something truly horrendous.

But this situation with North Korea long ceased to be remotely entertaining.

It is now a deadly serious game of brinkmanship that could potentially end in catastrophic disaster.

The situation with North Korea long ceased to be remotely entertaining and is a deadly serious game of brinkmanship that could potentially end in catastrophic disaster - and Kim Jong Un is hardly known for his calm or rationality. He is a ruthless megalomaniac tyrant

To add to the general unease, the key participants in this game are Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, two men not exactly renowned for their peace-making skills or calm, rational responses to being taunted or provoked.

But at this point, I think it is important to remind everyone who the bad guys are in this game.

Clue: it’s not America or the President of the United States.

Let’s be very clear: North Korea, after decades of increasingly bellicose threats against the US, has now got miniaturized nuclear warheads.

Possibly as many as 60.

Further, it has made a specific threat to attack Guam, a small US territory in the western Pacific ocean that holds a US military outpost.

There are 6,000 American troops currently based there, along with 162,000 civilians.

In a statement, North Korea says it is ‘seriously examining the plan for an enveloping strike at Guam through simultaneous fire of four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range strategic ballistic missiles in order to interdict the enemy forces on major military bases on Guam and to signal a crucial warning to the US.’

The plan, the statement added, is to fly the missiles over Japan and land them in the waters 18-25 miles from Guam.

That would be bad enough.

But the Hwasong-12 missile has been tested only once and has a very unpredictable performance and unreliable accuracy.

Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Hwasong-14 is pictured during its second test-fire in this undated picture. In a statement, North Korea says it is ‘seriously examining the plan for an enveloping strike at Guam through simultaneous fire of four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range strategic ballistic missiles

So to put it bluntly, once fired they could go anywhere and land anywhere – Japan, Guam, who knows?

At this point, I’d like you to imagine you are Donald Trump.

I realise that for many of you, this will not be an easy exercise, but force yourselves.

He is President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world.

He possesses the largest military force ever seen.

And he is now facing a very real and immediate nuclear threat from a crackpot country with a crackpot leader.

What would YOU do?

Calmly sit back, say ‘oh, it’s just Kim being Kim…’ and go back to watching America’s Got Talent with the family?

Or would you, like Trump, be extremely concerned about protecting the lives of your citizens and those of your allies?

I don’t like some of the ‘fire and fury’ rhetoric Trump has been using, because it is unnecessarily hyperbolic and inflammatory. Especially to a hyper-sensitive, over-reactionary douchebag like Jong Un.

I particularly didn’t like Trump saying he would instantly retaliate against ‘any further threat’ from North Korea because that left room for dangerous ambiguity.

What constitutes a ‘threat’ – words or actions?

Now he has clarified he meant actions; if North Korea tries to attack to Guam, or anywhere else, then it will be met with fire and fury.

That is a perfectly reasonable position for the US to take, is it not?

Yet the reaction to Trump’s emphatic statement of intent to defend America, and the world, against any actual attack from North Korea has been extraordinarily vitriolic and extraordinarily dumb.

Trump, for all his faults, is not a murderous dictator. To suggest he is somehow on the same level of depravity as someone like Jong Un is pathetic. Those who persist in making this absurd analogy need to take a long, hard look at themselves and wonder whose national interest they are serving right now

Such is the blind visceral hatred towards the US president from Trump-hating liberals, they cannot apparently bring themselves to see any distinction between him and Jong Un.

So let me spell it out for them..

Jong Un, like his father before him, is a ruthless megalomaniac tyrant who terrorises his people through torture, executions and systematic abuse.

The 33-year-old has murdered scores of political enemies, including his own half brother who was poisoned by a VX nerve agent in a Malaysia airport earlier this year.

Jong Un is also reported to have blown up an uncle, Jang Song Thaek, with an anti-aircraft cannon.

This, therefore, is a guy with a very low bar for wreaking death and havoc, even on his own family.

Trump, for all his faults, is not a murderous dictator.

To suggest he is somehow on the same level of sickening totalitarian depravity as someone like Jong Un is not just untrue – it is pathetic.

Those who persist in making this absurd analogy need to take a long, hard look at themselves and wonder whose national interest they are serving right now – America’s, or North Korea’s?

This is the most serious threat to national security the US has faced since 9/11.

An unstable lunatic with a massive military force and nuclear warheads now has the capability to reach US territory and has directly signalled his intention to imminently do so.

For America to do nothing in the face of Jong Un actually unleashing his weapons towards Guam is unthinkable.

Trump is therefore quite right to warn the North Koreans that if they try anything of that nature, the full force of the US military will respond.

This is not a joke.

This is a very real and very dangerous moment in the world’s history.

And in such moments, clarity as to whose side to take is imperative.

Donald Trump is not the bad guy, Kim Jong Un is the bad guy.