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More than a twelve months following the election that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its election autopsy. However, recently, an prominent liberal advocacy organization published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly replicate 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, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate to challenging times.

Major Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based 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 massive investment in shared infrastructure, 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 pan-European 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 timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – though 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 bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to 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 stated that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.