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Over a year following the vote that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its election autopsy. However, last week, an influential liberal advocacy organization published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties 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 mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Major Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining 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 Brussels-based research institute, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in public goods, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would boost growth figures that have stagnated for years.

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. 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 Inaction

The reality is that without such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening 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 happily exploited to promote a politics of nativist social policy. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. But without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Governments must avoid handing this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.