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More than a twelve months after the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not released its election autopsy. However, last week, an influential liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, did not resonate with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly 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, supported by large swaths of blue-collar voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Costly Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in public goods, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

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

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals 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 embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Cost of Inaction

The reality is that without such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a growing battle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited 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 said that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. But without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.