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More than a twelve months after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not released its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson 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 mirror Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a European research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major 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 economic transformation would boost growth figures that have flatlined for years.

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage 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 unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Inaction

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. Bitter recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight 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 said that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet in the absence of a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Absent a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must avoid handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.