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Over a twelve months after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an influential liberal advocacy organization published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing everyday financial worries. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning 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 European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly 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, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in public goods, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks 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 widely supported with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European welfare state – a trend that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.