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More than a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “nationalist movements 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, supported by significant segments of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in public goods, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift 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 resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged to promote a politics of nativist social policy. 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.

Avoiding a Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. But without a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent risk being ripped up. Governments must avoid giving this political gift to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.