🔗 Share this article Addressing Europe's National Populists: Protecting the Vulnerable from the Winds of Transformation More than a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has still not issued its election autopsy. However, last week, an influential 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 addressing basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds. A Warning for Europe While Europe prepares 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 “nationalist movements 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) lead the polls, backed by significant segments of working-class voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times. Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions The challenges Europe faces are costly and historic. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based research institute, 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 massive investment in public goods, to be partly funded by jointly held EU debt. Such a fiscal paradigm shift would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years. However, 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 “budget hawks 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 overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move. The Cost of Political Paralysis The truth is that without such measures, the less well-off will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and increased inequality. Bitter recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle over the future of the European welfare state – a phenomenon that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited 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 foreign residents. Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.