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Over a year after the vote that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic party has still not released its election autopsy. But, recently, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by significant segments of blue-collar voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The issues 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 more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to 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 public goods, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

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

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations resist the idea of shared debt, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are deeply timid. 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 – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Acrimonious 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 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 target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Populists

Across the Atlantic, 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 alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Absent a fundamental change in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of handing this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.