🔗 Share this article

More than a year following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for Europe

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully understood in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by large swaths of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly 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 bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European 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 public goods, 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 EU-wide 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 shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is widely supported with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and increased inequality. Acrimonious 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 resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.