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Over a twelve months after the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on addressing everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected 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 from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon 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 large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Costly Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in public goods, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

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

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. But the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The reality is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and greater inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited 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 target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Political Gift for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements 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.