Over a year following the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive 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 authors argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on addressing everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost 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 must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful 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, backed by large swaths of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is adequate to challenging times.
Major Problems 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, dealing with demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. As per a Brussels-based research institute, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.
Such a economic transformation would stimulate 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 EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a tax on the super-rich is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.
The Price of Political Paralysis
The reality is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European welfare state – a trend that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. 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 Political Gift for Nationalists
Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. But in the absence of a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Absent a radical shift in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Policymakers must avoid handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.
