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Over a year following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its election autopsy. But, recently, an influential progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly 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 large swaths of blue-collar voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive 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 pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

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

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. But the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Cost of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts 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 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.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.