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More than a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its election autopsy. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly mirror Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe'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 establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern 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, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based research institute, 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 substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

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

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – 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 opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. 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 Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.