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More than a twelve months after the election that delivered Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an influential progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate 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. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. 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 pressure 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 study last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in public goods, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

But, at both the EU-wide 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 shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Bitter 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 happily exploited 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 focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. But without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must avoid giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.