🔗 Share this article

Over a twelve months after the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic party has still not released its postmortem analysis. But, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising 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

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon mirror 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 significant segments of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a European thinktank, 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 demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would boost growth figures that have flatlined for years.

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations resist 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 widely supported with voters. Yet the embattled 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 spending cuts 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 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 stated that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. But in the absence of a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Absent a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.