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More than a year following the election that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic Party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an influential liberal advocacy organization released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon mirror Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building 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 annual EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in public goods, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations resist the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly 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 affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts 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 trend that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. 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.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as subsequent healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Governments must avoid giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.