Addressing the Continent's National Populists: Shielding the Less Well-Off from the Forces of Transformation

More than a twelve months after the vote that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing everyday financial worries. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements 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, backed by significant segments of blue-collar voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is adequate to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Costly Solutions

The issues Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major report last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, 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 remains a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals 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 – 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 well-off will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight 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 said that it would target any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of 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 are in danger of being torn apart. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.