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More than a twelve months following the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. But, last week, an influential liberal advocacy organization released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Major Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

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

But, 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 resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. 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 – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle over the future of the European welfare state – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited 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 target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in economic approach, 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.