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More than a twelve months following the election that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected 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 from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released 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) top the polls, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is adequate to challenging times.

Major Challenges and Expensive 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 building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European research institute, 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 called for massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have stagnated 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 “frugal” nations resist the idea of collective borrowing, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – though 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 financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European welfare state – 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 opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Political Gift for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. But without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Absent a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Governments must avoid handing this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.