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More than a year after the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period 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 makes clear, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly 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 significant segments of working-class voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate 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 building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate 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 Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks 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 focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Political Gift for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet in the absence of a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.