More than a twelve months after the election that delivered Donald Trump a decisive return victory, the Democratic Party has still not released its postmortem analysis. However, last week, an influential liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect 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, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.
As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. 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. In the EU’s core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to challenging times.
The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in public goods, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.
Such a economic transformation would boost growth figures that have stagnated for years.
But, 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 “frugal” nations oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.
The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and increased inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a growing battle over the future of the European social model – a phenomenon 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 foreign residents.
In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, 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.
A seasoned journalist with a passion for uncovering stories that matter in the Czech Republic and beyond.
