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Over a twelve months following the election that delivered Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. But, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization published its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, did not resonate with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, 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) top the polls, supported by significant segments of blue-collar voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is adequate to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have stagnated 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 “frugal” nations resist the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. But the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Inaction

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a growing battle over the future of the European welfare state – 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 said that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Political Gift for Populists

Across the Atlantic, 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 fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.