Combating the Continent's Populist Movements: Protecting the Vulnerable from the Forces of Transformation

More than a year after the vote that delivered Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not issued its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris's campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

While Europe prepares for a turbulent era of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “nationalist movements in Europe will quickly replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. But among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is adequate to challenging times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate 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 stimulate growth figures that have stagnated for years.

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there continues to be a lack of boldness when it comes to generating funds. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of collective borrowing, and EU spending plans for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. But the embattled centrist government – though desperate to cut its budget deficit – will not consider such a move.

The Cost of Inaction

The truth is that without such measures, the less affluent will bear the brunt of financial adjustment through spending cuts and increased inequality. Bitter recent disputes over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European welfare state – a phenomenon 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 said that it would target any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Political Gift for Populists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. Yet in the absence of a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a radical shift in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent are in danger of being ripped up. Governments must avoid handing this political gift to the populist movements already on the march in Europe.