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Over a year after the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its election autopsy. But, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling everyday financial worries. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon replicate 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, backed by significant segments of blue-collar voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass 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 Brussels-based thinktank, 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 demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness 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 overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The reality is that without such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European welfare state – a trend that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet without a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Governments must avoid handing this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.