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More than a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to released its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling everyday financial worries. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic 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) top the polls, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Problems and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years.

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the beleaguered 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 well-off will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and greater inequality. Bitter recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to 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 said that it would target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. But 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, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must steer clear of giving this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.