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Over a twelve months following the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing everyday financial worries. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected 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 between now and the end of the decade, that is a message 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 “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) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. Yet 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 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. As per a European research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have stagnated for years.

However, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a growing battle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged 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 non-French nationals.

Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.