How do you explain Katie Hopkins to your American friends?

Americans have gone and discovered Katie Hopkins. Looks like we've got some explaining to do

Katie Hopkins was recently praised by Donald Trump. (Rex)

US citizens have had the good fortune to have lived their lives relatively oblivious to the controversial Daily Mail columnist and ex-Apprentice contestant Katie Hopkins.

Until yesterday, that is.

Google searches for her name across the pond shot up after Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted a ‘thank you’ to her in reference to her “powerful” column in the Daily Mail about what he called “the UK’s Muslim problems”.

Although everyone in the UK knows her name, Americans have never needed to take much notice of Katie Hopkins, so on when her name appeared on Trump’s Twitter – which has over 5.2 million followers – they went looking for an explanation.

So how exactly do you explain Katie Hopkins to your bewildered American friends? Is she, as Trump says, a “respected columnist”? Is she just a television personality who we all giggle at, or is she something more harmful?

‘The Daily Beast’ writer Tim Teeman described Hopkins as Donald Trump’s ‘favourite Brit’, and compared her to a ‘low-rent’ version of conservative political commentator Ann Coulter.

Actually, she’s is a lot easier to explain in the context of Trump who, like Hopkins, manages to be both hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

They’re really rather similar, and not just because both of them used became famous by being horrible to people on The Apprentice (though one has to admit, that’s quite the coincidence).

In a lot of ways, Katie Hopkins is just our answer to Donald Trump. They are both prominent public figures whom most of the public seem to spend laughing at. In both cases, however, our incessant laughter is actually of the uncomfortable, nervous variety. Both figures actually have an overwhelming amount of public support.

Most people will outwardly claim to hate Trump and Hopkins, but while he is leading the race to become the Republican leader, people are still reading and watching Hopkins, hanging on to every word she says.

It looks like Katie might be our Trump, because while a lot of us seem to hate her, we have a lot of fun doing it.

Our obsession with listening to what Katie Hopkins has to say on TV, in The Sun and in the Mail is strange but undeniable.

So worry not, American citizens. You won’t struggle to understand Katie Hopkins, you already have one. And he’s in the running to be your president.