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Over a twelve months following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon replicate 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, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of collective borrowing, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. But the embattled 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 affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle over the future of the European welfare state – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. But without a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.