Countering the Continent's Populist Movements: Protecting the Vulnerable from the Forces of Change

Over a year following the vote that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not released its election autopsy. However, last week, an influential progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on tackling everyday financial worries. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were foremost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for Europe

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy indicates, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon 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) top the polls, supported by large swaths of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Costly Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with demographic change and building economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. As per a European thinktank, the new age of geopolitical insecurity could necessitate an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A major study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded massive investment in public goods, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

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

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a deficit of courage when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks oppose the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is widely supported with voters. Yet 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 in the absence of such measures, the less affluent will pay the price of financial adjustment through austerity budgets and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – 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 opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were largely insincere, as later healthcare reductions and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Absent a fundamental change in fiscal policy, societal agreements across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid giving this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the rise in Europe.