CLINTON WANTS YOU TO THINK TRUMP'S PATHOLOGIES EXIST ON A CONTINUUM

This comes from a Republican group that doesn't like Donald Trump, so the results may be somewhat skewed, but it's from a respectable polling firm, so I think it's plausible:

A majority of voters say Donald Trump would allow the U.S. to default on its debt and that he would misuse the power of the presidency to punish his political opponents.

And nearly half of voters -- 46 percent -- say the GOP nominee would use a nuclear weapon to attack ISIS or another foreign enemy.

Those are the findings of a new poll conducted by SurveyMonkey on behalf of the Lincoln Leadership Initiative, a new group helmed by prominent Republican critics of the New York billionaire who are advocating for the Republican Party to dump Trump and return to its “foundational values.”

The poll also found that a majority of voters believe that as president, Trump would create a database to track Muslims and order military strikes against the families of terrorists.

Sixty-five percent said that there would be race riots in major cities during a Trump administration, and 44 percent believe Trump would authorize internment camps for illegal immigrants.

Many people who are actually going to vote for Trump believe all these things, and either approve or don't care:

... Among those who say they will vote for Trump, 48 percent say he’ll create a database to track Muslims; 36 percent say there will be race riots; 33 percent say the government would default on its debt; and 32 percent say Trump would punish his political opponents and authorize internment camps for illegal immigrants.

Only 22 percent of Trump supporters believe he will start a nuclear war.

On the other hand, if you look at the survey and crosstabs, far more Democrats and independents believe all these things about Trump.

I think there's a connection between all this and some of the "soft" negative ads the Clinton campaign and its allies have been running for months. The latest one is this:

The Clinton campaign will begin airing a new ad Friday that intercuts Trump insulting women with shots of young girls looking in the mirror.

"I'd look her right in that fat ugly face of hers," Trump says in the ad, a comment he made in 2006 about comedian Rosie O'Donnell. "She is a slob."

The ad, entitled "Mirrors," also features Trump saying "A person who is flat chested is very hard to be a 10" -- a comment he made about actress Nicollette Sheridan -- and "Does she have a good body, no? Does she have a fat (expletive)? Absolutely." -- a comment he made about Kim Kardashian in 2013.

While these comments are playing, the ad features a diverse group of young women looking in the mirror, appearing to evaluate themselves as Trump's voice makes demeaning comments.

The end of the ad features a black slate with this question: "Is this the president we want for our daughters?"

This ad is about sexism and body-shaming specifically, just as a Clinton ad released earlier this week is about disability specifically. But the larger point is that Trump goes through the world with no empathy and no worries about the damage he does to other people with his words and deeds. If you're dismayed by Trump, it's easy to make a leap from that to internment camps or going nuclear. But ads like this one keep that discussion in human terms, for voters who might not be politically engaged.

This could be a brilliant strategy. We'll find out in November.