🔗 Share this article

More than a year following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its postmortem analysis. But, recently, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing everyday financial worries. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly mirror Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is adequate to troubling times.

Major Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in public goods, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

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

But, 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 EU spending plans for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The reality is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms 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 welfare chauvinism. 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 Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. But in the absence of a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.