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More than a twelve months after the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its election autopsy. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate 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 Lesson for Europe

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive 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.

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose 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. But the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – 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 resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.