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Over a twelve months after the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an influential progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

While Europe prepares 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 newly released national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly mirror Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is adequate to troubling times.

Major Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based research institute, 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 partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

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

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of financial adjustment through spending cuts and increased inequality. Bitter recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – a trend 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 stated that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Political Gift for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.