Why subscribe? Note the kind words of Tim, a new paid subscriber: "I love that Steven Beschloss shows his love for our country by urging us to love it as well!" And Molly: "I enjoy your well written and interesting points of view." You Can See the Fear Amid the joyful and growing enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz ticket, Donald Trump's "press conference" at Mar-a-Lago exposes his growing fear that he's going to lose Steven Beschloss Aug 9 Donald Trump’s thumbs-up yesterday is not a show of confidence. (Photo by Joe Raedle via Getty Images) If you needed a clear sign that Donald Trump is losing—and knows it—you should have tuned in to the so-called press conference at Mar-a-Lago yesterday. The event—complete with softball questions answered with a non-stop parade of lies—was a tired and tedious affair hosted by a malignant narcissist who still imagines his repetitive insults, racism and sexism can still hypnotize a breathless, bedazzled public. But in his sad attempt to appear calm and together, his anger, fear and madness were lurking close to the surface and not hard to see. It was a hastily pulled-together show, rambling and often incoherent, as if he just got out of bed and his handlers lacked the power to convince him to stay in bed. But, of course, as he insists, he alone can fix it—he knows better than his political operatives how to manage his dark and angry campaign in free-fall as the pro-democracy, pro-America Harris-Walz ticket experiences joyful exuberance. In the first minutes, Trump lied that VP Harris had worked to drive President Biden out, that the highly popular Pennsylvania governor and possible VP pick Josh Shapiro is deeply unpopular, that Harris (who has a Jewish husband) hates Jewish people, and that his new presidential opponent is not only dumb, she’s dumber than Biden. He of course repeatedly refused to pronounce her name properly and repeatedly returned to his familiar putdown that this Black female lacks intelligence and competence. He also lingered over how the crowd size of her rallies could not compare to his, dramatically understating the numbers that have so far reached an estimated 15,000 in Detroit Wednesday. Worse, he insisted that his are larger than the crowd who attended Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 (actually some 250,000 attended that March on Washington). Oh, he also lied that no one was killed on January 6, 2021. Did I mention that Trump thinks he’s much smarter than his opponent and claims she lacks the competence to conduct a media interview? That he thinks calling her a “radical left person” is the kind of label that will stick? That he has no plan for a “recalibrated strategy” because so little has changed since the president ended his candidacy and Harris became the nominee? The toxic torrent of lies carried on for over an hour, but there was little reason to stick around for long. Because it quickly became clear that he had no new observations and no real idea how to confront the rising prospects of the Harris-Walz ticket. As for news, he claimed that he was confirming three debates in just three weeks in September, only one of which VP Harris later confirmed she plans to attend—that being the one previously scheduled for September 10 on ABC. (“Hope he shows up,” Harris said later.) Despite the continuing failure of his running mate JD Vance to resonate with the public and continuing success at cringe-worthy behavior (did you catch his attempt to ambush Air Force Two with a collection of bros while the VP was engaging with 12,000 Wisconsins in Eau Claire?), Trump did say he’s sticking with his VP nominee. But the utter absence of new ideas and the tired shtick of Donald Trump was on full display, something which I expect we’ll see more and more of as Harris-Walz gains momentum and Trump’s shriveling ticket lingers long past its expiration date. Let’s not doubt there will be plenty of insults and attacks, plenty of attempts to swiftboat 24-year military veteran Tim Walz, plenty of efforts to claim the Democratic ticket hates the police and will lead to everything from a Great Depression to mass violence across America. The next three months will not lack a heap of hate and hostility. But all this noise is really a signal that Trump-Vance is thrashing and crashing. And I would suggest, amid all the thrashing around to take down the Democrats, the candidates have an opportunity to bring to an end the tired old labels that no longer describe our world. You know, labels like “far left” and “communist” and “leftist radical” to describe Democrats who advocate for many quite popular issues and policies. This is something that Mark Jacob and I touched on in yesterday’s Media Misses video. But I want to share with you here some of the data. Consider some of the policies that Harris and Walz embrace—”Never shy away from progressive values,” Walz asserted during the “White Dudes for Harris” fundraiser last week—and the public backing for them. Legalizing recreational marijuana (70 percent), background checks for gun ownership (87 percent), paid family and medical leave (85 percent), abortion access (63 percent) and free school breakfasts and lunches (60 percent). These polling numbers are not just for Democrats, but for all Americans, both Democrats and Republicans. Now compare the popularity of these issues with the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda. A newly released University of Massachusetts-Amherst poll asked respondents about a number of the proposed 2025 plans. The results are informative—and encouraging. Just 10 percent strongly support and 12 percent somewhat support “reducing federal rights protections for lesbian, gay and transgender people.” That’s barely one out of five. Meanwhile, 42 percent strongly oppose and 9 percent somewhat oppose this plan. Just 4 percent strongly support and 8 percent somewhat support “firing thousands of federal employees and replacing them with political appointees loyal to the president.” Meanwhile, 68 percent strongly or somewhat oppose this plan. Just 4 percent strongly support and 6 percent somewhat support “restricting women’s access to contraception.” Meanwhile, 72 percent strongly or somewhat oppose such restrictions. Just 11 percent strongly support and 9 percent somewhat support “eliminating the Department of Education.” Just 9 percent strongly support and 14 somewhat support “cutting funding for renewable energy research and investment.” Twenty-five percent strongly support and 14 percent somewhat support “ending federal policies to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in education, employment and housing. As Tatishe Nteta, a UMass-Amherst political science professor and director of this polling put it, “While our politics are usually divided by class, generational, racial, gender and partisan identities, among these groups we find strong opposition to many of the policies associated with Project 2025.” No wonder Donald Trump is now pretending he has nothing to do with the agenda, nor does he claim to know anyone involved with it. It’s hard to overstate how dumb he thinks voters are. But next time you hear Trump or Vance, a Fox pundit or any other Republican decrying the extremist agenda of VP Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, remember that those labels are old, tired—and a false representation of where a majority of Americans exist on the ideological spectrum. Moreover, let’s remember who exists outside the mainstream and is—as Tim Walz puts it—just plain weird.