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More than a year following the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its postmortem analysis. But, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly replicate 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 mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to troubling times.

Major Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in public goods, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of collective borrowing, 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 – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider 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 fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a growing battle over the future of the European welfare state – a trend 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 said that it would focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as subsequent healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid handing this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.