SONGWRITER Tom Lehrer’s quip that “political satire became obsolete when they awarded Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize” seems, well, obsolete, perhaps even a little quaint, when you consider the catastrophe that came in the form of Donald Trump.

I was thinking of this at the weekend as I caught up on episodes of The Late Show and The Daily Show, hosted by two of America’s wittiest, most talented and laugh-out-loud satirists respectively, Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah. Since Trump’s election both have hitting ratings highs, as those appalled by the election of President Trump, both in the US and around the world, flock for a daily hit of mirth. It’s hardly surprising that folk keep going back for more; laughter is addictive and you feel like you’re among friends when you watch.

Colbert and Noah aren’t the only US satirists having their moment in the sun, of course – Melissa McCarthy, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon and Alec Baldwin (if you haven’t seen his take on Trump you really should give it a go), are also on fire, too. In the UK, meanwhile, old-school satirical magazine Private Eye’s sales are higher than they’ve ever been and Bridget Christie’s Brexit routine has taken the stand-up circuit by storm.

But since few of these shows will be seen by anyone who voted for Trump or Brexit, is there really any point in continually preaching to the converted? Does satire have any impact at all when it all comes from the same liberal position and is directed at one target? And maybe some situations just too grim to poke fun at?

Over the last few days I’ve read a number of newspaper articles arguing just that, questioning whether humour is a valid, never mind useful, tool in dealing with the aftermath of the shocking turns of events in the UK and US.

In some ways I can see their point. As the creator of The Simpsons Matt Groening said recently when asked about the episode of the show aired in 2000 that imagined Trump as president: “What’s happened is beyond satire.”

How we all laughed back then when in Simpsons world a Trump presidency signified an America that had hit rock bottom and finally gone completely insane, requiring sensible, smart Lisa Simpson to be elected straight after. The episode now watches like an unheeded warning.

There are many in Scotland, meanwhile, who may consider Brexit - basically the product of arrogant, loud-mouthed, unelectable Nigel Farage’s Rule Britannia obsessed imagination - to be grimly beyond satire, too.

But for me, I suppose it is precisely the hideousness of it all that requires us to keep poking fun. After all, the alternative to not laughing is too awful to contemplate; in my experience it’s being able to see the funny side of life’s worst and most painful moments that make us able to get through them. I’ll never forget, for instance, how my brother and I had to stop looking at each other during our father’s funeral more than 20 year ago for fear we’d fall apart, not with grief (though we were both utterly devastated by our dad’s sudden death) but with laughter because the minister taking the service looked and sounded just like the Reverend I M Jolly. Humour helped us through that most difficult of days and the memory still makes us laugh.

No, it’s feelings of desolation that send you over the edge or simply stop you caring altogether. And with reference to current events either would surely be the wrong response; laughter makes you strong.

With this in mind, I leave it to perhaps the greatest satirist of them all, Mark Twain, to help explain the simple but vital comfort food quality of comedy and satire: “The political and commercial morals of the US are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.”