🔗 Share this article Combating the Continent's National Populists: Protecting the Less Well-Off from the Forces of Transformation Over a twelve months following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its election autopsy. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, did not resonate with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds. A Warning for Europe 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 understood in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon 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 working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to challenging times. Era-Defining Challenges and Costly Solutions The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to pressure 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 called for substantial investment in public goods, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt. Such a economic transformation would boost growth figures that have flatlined for years. But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations 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 overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move. The Cost of Inaction The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts 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 opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals. Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet without a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Absent a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Governments must avoid giving this political gift to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.