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Over a twelve months after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has still not issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an influential progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by significant segments of blue-collar voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is adequate to troubling times.

Major Problems and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years.

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European welfare state – a trend that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of nativist social policy. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, social contracts across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.