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Over a twelve months after the election that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon mirror Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, supported by significant segments of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded 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 lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich 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 truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Bitter recent disputes over retirement reforms 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 eagerly leveraged to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. But in the absence of a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Governments must steer clear of giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.