🔗 Share this article

Over a twelve months following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic Party has yet to issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon 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, backed by significant segments of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to challenging times.

Major Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining 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 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 demanded massive investment in public goods, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt.

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

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply 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 Political Paralysis

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms 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 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 stated that it would target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. But without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.