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Over a year after the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to released its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization published 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. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties 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) top the polls, supported 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.

Major Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in public goods, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years.

But, 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 resist the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. But the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and increased inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon 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 focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Political Gift for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Absent a fundamental change in economic approach, social contracts across the continent risk being ripped up. Governments must steer clear of giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.