The real Donald Trump – one scary dude!

The grim visage staring at you in this picture would be enough to scare the living daylights out of 007, Luca Brasi, ISIS, Kim Jong Un or a pack of rabid attack dogs. Uncle Fester on steroids. The face of a serial killer, a torturer, a Christian-persecuting Roman emperor, a paranoid eunuch at the court of a fratricidal Ottoman Sultan?

I’m not a fan of Madame Tussauds. Waxworks look, well, waxy, and often nothing like the intended subject. But this one, before they stuck the yak hair on top of his head and plastered him with orange, captures The Walrus rather well, I think.

Would the American people have elected him if he’d appeared before the people without the cirrus cloud hovering those grim features? I don’t think so. A few months ago I wrote a post about the difficulty bald politicians face in achieving supreme power, especially in the US and the UK. Think back to every elected prime minister since Churchill, and every president since Eisenhower (apart from the accidental one thrown up by Watergate).  A quirk of follicular genetics determines your perceived fitness to lead. More on that subject in Politics – why do the baldies always lose (unless they’re up against other baldies)?

Anyway, just when you think America has elected Ernst Stavro Blofeld as president, he comes up with this rather plaintive tweet:

Ah OK, that must have been the version with the hair. Makes you want to pass the poor guy a hankie.

The wonderful thing about America is that you can say all kinds of things about elected officials  – provided they are not threatening or libellous – without some G-man or lawyer with a writ knocking on your door. Not so in some other parts of the world – Turkey for example.

Should that cease to be the case in the near future, then the rest of us have real cause to worry. Until then, happy days for cartoonists, political sketch writers and John Oliver. If only Theresa May was such an easy target!