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Over a twelve months following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its election autopsy. However, recently, an influential liberal advocacy organization published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected 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 understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon mirror Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by significant segments of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive 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.

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of collective borrowing, 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. But the beleaguered 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 well-off will pay the price of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks 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 nativist social policy. 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 Political Gift for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as subsequent healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.