THE SIMPLE IDEA THAT WAS PROBABLY TOO COMPLICATED FOR THE HARRIS CAMPAIGN TO DISCUSS

I'm back, and I'd like to respond to something Yas posted while I was away, in light of a story from ABC:

While almost half the country sees former President Donald Trump as a fascist, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll published Friday, some who believe that say they'll still vote for him.

Among registered voters who regard Trump as a fascist, 8% support him regardless, the poll found.

Yas told us on Thursday that he thinks we're using the word fascist in reference to Trump in a simplistic and inaccurate way, to mean, for instance, He likes to talk about Hitler. ABC questioned some of the voters who say Trump is a fascist but intend to vote for him anyway. I agree that they don't quite know what fascist means, but the common thread in what they say is: He says a lot of mean stuff, but he doesn't seem to do anything really bad.

Analia, (ABC News is not using last names for privacy reasons) a 46-year-old accounting tour operator and former Democrat from Florida, explained she leans toward Trump because of his policies.

"I don't like him as the person that he chose to be, but I like his politics," she said. "But as a human being, I would never support."

When asked about an authoritarian leader, she said, "I think it's good for the country. I think we need some sort of order. I do like those kinds of things from [Trump]."

She said while people deserve freedom, a balance is necessary and society demands "certain rules" be implemented.

So to Analia, fascism just means "law and order."

Here's another ABC interviewee who prefers to remain anonymous:

"Personally, he's a fascist," she said. "Professionally wise, as president, I think he would do a good job."

"We can call our bosses fascist. Doesn't mean that they're not good bosses," she said.

So Trump is a fascist because he's like a demanding boss.

And then there's this guy, also anonymous, who appears to believe that Trump might want do something terrible, but will be hemmed in by guardrails:

"It's something that I'm kind of having to look past," he said. I don't necessarily want to, but considering the candidates we have ... I feel like it's something I kind of have to do."

He also expressed that he does not think Trump can impose fascism in America.

"I don't think he can actually implement it, but I do see him as at least trying," he said.

And there's the problem: Many voters think he's mean or angry or actually fascist, but either they don't believe he wants to do anything really bad or they think he does, but he can't get away with it.

Yas reminds us that as president he was fascist:

I guess what I hope is that [Kamala Harris] will express that reality, of Trump's own intentions and those of his minions ... and their actual historical record in the last round, of the Muslim ban and the semi-secret partnership with Putin, and the concentration camps on the Mexican border, and the threats to our traditional security alliances while Trump flirted with notorious dictators, and the attacks on renewable energy, and his unconstitutional efforts especially during the immigration crises and Black Lives Matter protests [of] 2019-20 to put the US under military occupation, and his current promises to arrest and prosecute those who tried to prosecute him, to deport millions of undocumented immigrants who have been living here peacefully harvesting our food and building our homes for the last 30 years, to "denaturalize" citizens he regards as offensive ... to fire tens of thousands of career civil servants and replace them with party cadres selected by the Heritage Foundation....

Yas reminds us of the generals who

continually worked to frustrate him and thwart his will, even to block him from using nuclear weapons.

But if you're not Muslim and not an immigrant border crosser and not a federal civil servant and not part of any Trump prosecution and if you never joined a protest when he was president, all that was just noise. Even January 6 was noise. And Trump didn't use nuclear weapons, even though he wanted to. He didn't pull the U.S. out of NATO, even though he wanted to. He didn't overturn the results of an election, even though he wanted to.

I think most of these voters would recoil from Trump if he'd managed to do some of the really extreme stuff he was prevented from doing. You and I know that he plans to stock his administration with loyalists this time, and won't hire anyone who might challenge him when he wants to do something crazy. We know that he didn't understand how to staff an administration the first time, so he filled his White House with people who prevented him from doing many of the truly horrifying things he wanted to do -- but that won't happen if he wins again.

Millions of voters think a Trump second term would be like his first term, and no one has tried very hard to tell them why it won't be. It's not rocket science -- it's simply "Trump appointed people from the Establishment last time, and that's what kept us from really veering into Crazy Town. This time, Trump intends to appoint only people from Crazy Town."

Apparently the Harris campaign thinks this is too complicated an argument for American voters -- and sadly, the campaign might be right.

If Trump wins, it's because millions of voters know he has dangerous instincts but don't believe he can act on them, or believe he makes dangerous threats but is mostly just blowing off steam. This time will be different might have been too complicated a message for the Harris camnpaign to use, but if so, that's why Trump might win.