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Over a twelve months after the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, supported by large swaths of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Challenges and Costly Solutions

The challenges 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 less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

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

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose 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 widely supported with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Cost of Inaction

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off 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 eagerly leveraged 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 foreign residents.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, 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 campaign trail. Absent a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.