🔗 Share this article

More than a twelve months after the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic Party has still not issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an influential liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling everyday financial worries. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is optimistic 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) top the polls, supported by significant segments of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They include 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. As per a Brussels-based 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 public goods, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

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

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Inaction

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – a trend that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged 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 Political Gift for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges 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 election circuit. Without a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must avoid handing this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.