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More than a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its postmortem analysis. But, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly mirror Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is adequate to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would boost growth figures that have flatlined for years.

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. But in the absence of a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must steer clear of giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.