Undecided voters are portrayed as representing the everyday American, but they are dangerous radicals.

During the first of three scheduled presidential debates, Donald Trump was a fire-hose of bullying and pouting, rarely giving Joe Biden a minute to speak. He tested his rival until Biden decided to stop tolerating the intolerable: “Will you shut up, man?”

Then something amazing happened. The Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonpartisan nonprofit that organizes the debates and sets the rules, announced “additional structure” would be forthcoming.

Implicit in this change was a remarkable consensus: Trump is to blame for the chaos. Changes include cutting off the candidates’ microphones while the other speaks. The commission, in so many words, will be forcing the president to shut up.

Telling authoritarians to shut up isn’t the only way, or the best way, of dealing with them. But it’s one of the tools the rest of us can use on confederates who have told us who they are when they exploit the rights and privileges of a free and open society to undermine a free and open society, even destroy it.

Don’t argue with them. Don’t reason with them. Debating them civilly is making room at the table of civilization for renegades ready to flip the table over if they don’t get their way. They will never respect you. Therefore, be sparing with your respect in return. The only thing they truly respect is a majority flexing its democratic power.

For the same reasons, we should be exceedingly wary of what I’ll call the Nice Undecided Voters (NUVs). The NUVs are almost always super-white. They are almost always rural. They are almost always middle-class. They get a lot of attention from the press corps in light of a vast majority of Americans making up their minds about 2020 way back in 2017.

To reporters, the NUVs appear to be deeply concerned about the fate of the nation, conflicted about the decision facing them, and symbolic of the divisiveness in the U.S.

Truth is, the NUVs are dangerous radicals. No other serious conclusion can be drawn after the president encouraged white-power vigilantes to “stand back and stand by.” After he tried extorting the electorate, musing about “bad trouble” if he loses the election.

This is what someone says when he sits at the head of the table of American civilization, expects everyone else to behave according to a set of established rules, but reserves the right to hold himself above the law in case he needs to flip the table over to get his way.

The NUVs interviewed after the debate refused to see the truth, or lied about accepting the truth.

The NUVs are not undecided. They are undeclared. They fear making their preference for fascism known. They fear it will get in way of their lives at the office, at church, at the bowling alley.

They cannot get what they want, however, if the rest of us deny them. The intolerant are only as strong as our willingness to tolerate them. So don’t.

JOHN STOEHR is editor and publisher of The Editorial Board and a contributing writer for Washington Monthly.