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Over a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic party has still not released its election autopsy. But, last week, an influential progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

As the EU braces 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 newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon mirror Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by significant segments of working-class voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based thinktank, 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 massive investment in public goods, 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 pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms 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 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 promises to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. But in the absence of a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.