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More than a twelve months following the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic party has still not released its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, did not resonate with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism 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 turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic 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, supported by significant segments of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to bullying 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 significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have stagnated for years.

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks 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 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.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet without a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.