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Over a year after the vote that handed Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its election autopsy. But, recently, an influential liberal advocacy organization released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on addressing everyday financial worries. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

However, 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 “frugal” nations oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. But 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 bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle 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.

Preventing a Political Gift for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. But without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.