🔗 Share this article

Over a twelve months after the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. 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 European Capitals

As the EU braces 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 Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly replicate 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, supported by significant segments of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Problems and Costly Solutions

The challenges 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 less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be partly funded 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 remains a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations oppose the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The reality is that without such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through spending cuts and increased inequality. Bitter 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 eagerly leveraged 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 target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. But without a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Without a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.