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More than a year after the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon mirror Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to bullying 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 major study last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of collective borrowing, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The reality is that without such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European welfare state – 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 focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. But in the absence of a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.