🔗 Share this article Combating Europe's Populist Movements: Shielding the Less Well-Off from the Forces of Change Over a year after the vote that handed Donald Trump a clear-cut comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not released its postmortem analysis. But, last week, an prominent liberal advocacy organization released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with core constituencies because it failed to concentrate enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Trumpist populism represented, liberals neglected the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds. A Lesson for Europe While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its newly released national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “nationalist movements in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) top the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is difficult to see a strategy that is sufficient to troubling times. Major Challenges and Costly Solutions The issues Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and building economies that are more resilient to bullying 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 called for substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt. Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years. But, at both the pan-European and national levels, there continues to be a deficit of courage 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. But the embattled centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate 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 spending cuts and greater inequality. Acrimonious recent disputes over retirement reforms in both France and Germany testify to a growing battle over the future of the European welfare state – a trend that the RN and the AfD have eagerly leveraged to promote a politics of nativist social policy. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has opposed moves to raise the retirement age and has stated that it would target any benefit cuts at foreign residents. Preventing a Political Gift for Nationalists Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in fiscal policy, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must steer clear of giving this political gift to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.