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More than a year after the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon replicate 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. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have stagnated for years.

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. But the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price 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 social model – 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 opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet in the absence of a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.