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More than a year following the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its election autopsy. But, last week, an influential progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful 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 working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Major Problems and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building 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 yearly EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in public goods, 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 continues to be 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. Yet the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and increased inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany testify to 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 focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. But in the absence of a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Without a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.