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More than a twelve months after the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an influential liberal advocacy organization published its own. The Harris campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly mirror Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Challenges and Expensive 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 building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive 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.

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations resist 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. But the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The reality is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany testify to a growing battle 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 opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. But in the absence of a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Absent a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must steer clear of handing this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.