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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 election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost 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 lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is adequate to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing 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 require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in public goods, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined 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 “frugal” nations oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening 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 welfare state – a phenomenon 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.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a radical shift in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid giving this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.