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More than a twelve months after the vote that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic Party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it did not focus 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

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe'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 establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to challenging times.

Major Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based thinktank, 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 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.

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of collective borrowing, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet 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 affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Bitter recent disputes 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 eagerly leveraged 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 focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. But without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a fundamental change in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being ripped up. Governments must avoid giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.