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More than a twelve months after the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors argued, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked 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 from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon mirror Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, backed by large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is adequate to challenging times.

Major Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

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

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

The Price of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to 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 non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.