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Over a twelve months after the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an influential progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost 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 needs to be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties 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) lead the polls, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to challenging times.

Major Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could require 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 financed in part by collective 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 shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly timid. 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 reality is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets 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 phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged 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 stated that it would focus 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 deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. But without a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Absent a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.