Washington Free Beacon Editor-In-Chief, Matthew Continetti, appeared on The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg. Continetti delved into the history of the conservative movement from the end of World War II through today. The conversation covered everything from Irving Kristol to “compassionate conservatism” to the Reagan presidency. One of the points he made about Ronald Reagan can be of good use to President Donald Trump today. 

Speaking on some of the struggles that the conservative movement has faced in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, Continetti said, “I lay a lot of the responsibility on Ronald Reagan himself. Reagan failed to choose a successor.” What Continetti is talking about is the continuation of the conservative movement that the Reagan presidency embodied, and the lack of a successor meant that conservatism had no leader to carry on the gains for the movement that Ronald Reagan had succeeded in accomplishing. 

It is obvious to anyone closely following the conservative movement today that Reagan’s failure in choosing a successor fractured the movement, and those fractures have led to a more populist movement that  opened up the door for Donald Trump. 

Reagan’s failure is a warning to President Trump. If Trump wants the populist/nationalist wave that succeeded in bringing him into the White House to continue once he is gone, he must choose a successor. For any movement to continue, there must be a line of succession. President Trump has a responsibility to create that line. 

If “Trumpism” is to continue, the worst mistake Trump could make is to not mold the next leader and hand-off his base of support to whomever that next leader could be. If Trump does not do that, the nationalist/populist movement that Trump has created could suffer a major hit, and potentially lose whatever grasp it has on the American electorate, making “Trumpism” a small blip on the radar of American history, instead of a lasting cause that is taken up for decades to come.