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Over a twelve months following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic Party has still not issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers contended, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson 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 indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, backed by large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a European research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

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

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight 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 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 non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Political Gift for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.