🔗 Share this article

More than a year after the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic Party has still not issued its election autopsy. However, recently, an influential liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors argued, did not resonate with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

As the EU braces 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 newly released national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly mirror 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 significant segments of blue-collar voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in public goods, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

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

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to generating funds. 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 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 Cost of Political Paralysis

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a growing battle 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 resisted 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 promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. But without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a radical shift in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must steer clear of giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.