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

More than a year after the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic Party has yet to released its election autopsy. But, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors contended, did not resonate with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate 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 foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully understood in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by large swaths of working-class voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to troubling times.

Major Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. 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 require an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness called for substantial investment in public goods, to be partly funded by collective EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate 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 “frugal” nations resist the idea of shared debt, 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 beleaguered centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Inaction

The reality is that without such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of fiscal tightening through spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight 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 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 Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as subsequent healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a compelling progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the campaign trail. Absent a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Governments must steer clear of giving this political gift to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.