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More than a twelve months after the vote that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its election autopsy. But, recently, an influential liberal advocacy organization published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

While Europe prepares 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 hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon mirror 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 adequate to challenging times.

Major Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining 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 European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in public goods, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

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

But, 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 resist 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 – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality 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. Acrimonious recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a growing battle over the future of the European welfare state – 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 opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.