Countering the Continent's National Populists: Shielding the Vulnerable from the Winds of Change

More than a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its election autopsy. But, last week, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly 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 large swaths of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is adequate to challenging times.

Major Challenges and Costly Solutions

The challenges 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 less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. As per a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in public goods, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

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

But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness 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 deeply unambitious. 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 Price of Political Paralysis

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight 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 stated that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy demonstrated. Yet without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.