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Over a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning 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 absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon mirror Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, 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 sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to 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 public goods, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would boost growth figures that have flatlined 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 Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The reality is that without such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter 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 welfare chauvinism. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. But in the absence of a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Absent a radical shift in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.