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More than a twelve months after the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its election autopsy. But, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, did not resonate with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly mirror Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by large swaths of blue-collar voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

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

However, at both the EU-wide 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 EU spending plans for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. 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 Inaction

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle 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 opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

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 worked on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must steer clear of giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.