I give credit to the author for trying, but having "enjoyed" an automata theory class and having read the textbook there is no "royal road to P/NP" much like geometry. Have to take the entire long road to get to the end.
Analogy time... how would you explain recursion to a general populace without first explaining variables, functions, calling by ref vs value (or just the idea of calling a function at all, and that it returns something), stacks, the concept of procedural programming, the idea of a flowchart, some level of error detection so it doesn't run off into the weeds, some basic ideas about scalability... So Colbert invites you on his show and after the HN cheering dies down he says "I don't know much about computer science, could you explain recursion in plain language in a line or two?" Honestly, I'd probably say "No" or some joke about it being turtles all the way down which the general public wouldn't find very amusing but those who know would laugh.