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Over a year following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic party has yet to released its postmortem analysis. But, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era 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 makes clear, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly 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 adequate to challenging times.

Major Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in public goods, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

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

The Price of Inaction

The reality is that without such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European social model – a trend 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 target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Absent a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.