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Over a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, did not resonate with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties 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, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues 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 more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would boost growth figures that have flatlined 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 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 embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased 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 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 stated 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 working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a fundamental change in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.