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More than a year following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to released its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers contended, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics from now until 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 quickly mirror Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues 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 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 require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive 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 stagnated for years.

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose 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 beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Bitter 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 eagerly leveraged to promote a politics of nativist social policy. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. But in the absence of a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.