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More than a year following the vote that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not released its election autopsy. But, last week, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon 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) lead 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 challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European research institute, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive 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 EU-wide and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle over the future of the European welfare state – a trend that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. 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 Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.