🔗 Share this article

Over a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not released its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an influential progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect 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, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, 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) top the polls, backed by large swaths of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass 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. As per a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would boost growth figures that have flatlined for years.

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – a trend that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged 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.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, 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 worked on the campaign trail. Absent a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must steer clear of giving this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.