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More than a twelve months following the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an prominent liberal advocacy organization published its own. The Harris campaign, its authors argued, did not resonate with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost 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 message that needs to be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly replicate 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 significant segments of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass 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. As per a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years.

But, 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 EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent 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 social model – 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 opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Political Gift for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.