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More than a twelve months following the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

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 absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly 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 blue-collar voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European research institute, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in public goods, 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 continues to be a lack of boldness 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 profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The truth is that without such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Bitter recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon 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 target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. But without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Absent a fundamental change in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must avoid handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.