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Over a year following the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its election autopsy. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, did not resonate with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing everyday financial worries. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

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 makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon 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, supported by significant segments of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining 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 Brussels-based research institute, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would boost growth figures that have flatlined for years.

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and increased inequality. Bitter recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon 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 stated that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.