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More than a year after the election that delivered Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to released its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns 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 message that must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass 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. As per a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would boost growth figures that have stagnated for years.

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations 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 beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. 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 pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.