The Post-Trump Conservative Movement’s Identity Crisis

WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The battle over the future of the American conservative movement is on full display as Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson trade barbs, but which side will win? Plus, Vivek Ramaswamy rejects the ideas of “heritage Americans,” and the Heritage Foundation loses major policy leaders from its organization to Mike Pence’s group, further demonstrating the divide on the right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
0:07.0	What will American conservatives stand for after the Donald Trump era?
0:14.0	Believe it or not, that debate is already happening on the political right, and it has
0:19.0	showed up in notable ways in recent days
0:21.6	at the Turning Point USA Conference in Arizona and remarks by Vake Ramoswamy, Ted Cruz,
0:29.5	Ben Shapiro, J.D. Vance, and others. Welcome to Potomac Watch. That is our subject for today. I'm Paul's You Go, editor of the opinion
0:40.1	pages of the journal, and I'm here with my colleagues, Barton Swain and Kim Strassau. So let's talk
0:46.2	about the debate on the right and among Republicans. Donald Trump has dominated Republican politics,
0:52.8	conservative politics for a decade, but even, oh, yes, three more
0:57.1	years left in office. The battle for the future of the movement and the party is underway.
1:03.6	J.D. Vance, I think it's fair to say, wants to be the heir apparent to Trump, and that includes
1:10.3	support from nearly all of his supporters, including the likes of
1:13.8	Tucker Carlson after his softball interview with a Nazi admirer, Nick Fuentes, as well as
1:21.3	Candice Owens, another polarizing podcast figure.
1:26.1	But Ben Shapiro, another pundit, gave a speech saying that the party needs
1:31.5	ideological border control, and that excludes some ideas and people who preach racial
1:38.4	bigotry or anti-Semitism. Let's listen to Shapiro and then Carlson's response at Turning Point USA.
1:46.0	The conservative movement is also in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle,
1:52.0	but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty, who offer nothing but bile and despair,
1:58.0	who seek to undermine fundamental principles of conservatism by championing
2:02.4	enervation and grievance. These people are frauds, and they are grifters, and they do not
2:07.2	deserve your time. And they are something worse than that, a danger to the only movement
	...

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