🔗 Share this article

More than a year following the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling everyday financial worries. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly replicate 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, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. As per a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant study 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 boost 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 revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening 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 social model – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.