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More than a twelve months after the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until 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 recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a European 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 financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms 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 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 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 later healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. But without a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.