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More than a year following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until 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 recently published national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties 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) top the polls, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Major Challenges and Costly Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a European research institute, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in public goods, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years.

However, 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 collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost 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 conflicts over retirement reforms 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 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 Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Absent a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.