Trump-bashing, led by America’s liberal media, is now a global sport. Despite daily bashing, Trump’s poll numbers show his voter base remains solid. How come a narcissist, misogynist, bigot and bully can command such loyalty? Smarts, that’s how.

What scares people is Trump’s brash unpredictability. You never know if he really means what he says. At least with poker-faced card players, you can risk calling a bluff. But dare you assume it’s a bluff when a mercurial leader with his finger on the button of the world’s most potent nuclear arsenal makes a threat?

If you think all of that happened by accident, then you are the idiot, not Trump. It happened because no one dares to call his poker cards. Trump’s detractors claim Kim has already acquired the nuclear arsenal he needs to pose a threat to the US and is now ready to talk with a strengthened hand. What nonsense.

Kim knows that if he dares aim just one missile at the US and its allies, he and his country would be reduced to dust. So he used his own smarts to sell himself as the leader who is ready to talk, to flatter Xi to get the Chinese on his side, to ease Trump’s destructive sanctions, and to charm Moon into thinking rapprochement is possible between the north and the south.

Michael Chugani is a Hong Kong journalist and TV show host