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More than a twelve months following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its election autopsy. But, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling everyday financial worries. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic 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) lead the polls, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly 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 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 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.

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 “frugal” nations resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly 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 – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased 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 nativist social policy. 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 Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. But in the absence of a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.