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More than a year after the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements 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) lead the polls, supported by significant segments of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate to challenging times.

Major Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a European research institute, 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 shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have stagnated for years.

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European welfare state – a trend 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 resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Political Gift for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.