In Mladenovac, Serbia, a town not unlike Steubenville, Ohio, Luka Maksimovic and some of his bros started making videos poking fun at politicians. They're all in their 20s, young guys with a video camera and probably a case or two of beer.

They invented Serbian politician Ljubisa Beli, a political fool who made his video appearances bare-chested on a white horse.

Beli was crude and dishonest, owned a shady business and loudly announced he had no intention of playing by the rules. He promised jobs everyone knew he couldn't deliver. He even promised to make restaurants serve better sandwiches. He handed out forged college degrees to his supporters. I imagine he was a great hit with waiters and customers, two groups that include nearly everyone.

Mladenovac, where this all happened, is a decaying manufacturing town full of closed factories and people who feel like they've been hit from behind with a tire tool.

They can take a joke in Mladenovac. They have to because the jokes are all they have left. I live in a town like that in Massachusetts. I have a friend who does a dead-on impersonation of a junkie, high, bending slowly forward from the waist until his head touches his feet. Around here, we call that "the dope fiend lean." My friend's impersonation is hilarious, extremely cruel and very sad.

The Serb-bros must have had big fun in mom's basement, making the video, laughing, not caring how many cigarettes they smoked because they're still too young to wheeze.

The Balkan bros also ran for office and they won seats on the local version of an American city council. Fictitious character Beli also won, but he will not serve. One of the differences between American politics and Serbian politics is that fictional characters cannot hold office in Serbia. If America had that rule, Ronald Reagan would have died in the Second-Rate Old Actors Home.

The bros promise reform, and they promise to take it all seriously. One of the hardest parts of growing up is learning to take things seriously. Eventually, you get old enough to take everything seriously, which is the beginning of death.

In America, our Donald Trump is everything the fictional sleaze Beli is, except Trump is real, or at least he claims he's real. Trump has even handed out the fake diplomas.

The factory jobs are gone from America, too, though Trump says he'll bring 'em back, presumably by going to China and telling them to give us back the jobs. If they won't give the jobs back, he'll bomb hell out of 'em and take their women.

When the times were good in Mladenovac, nobody would have paid any attention to the videos made by a bunch of young guys all strung out on lack of respect and general goofiness. Instead, the citizens would have quietly elected some guy with an unmatched record of getting the garbage picked up and the snow plowed.

Some jokes don't translate well. The Mladenovac joke does. It translates to Trump, who is fictional enough to laugh at, but real enough to elect.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, "King of the World on $14 an Hour," a collection of his best 2014 columns, is available for Nook and Kindle.