Countering Europe's National Populists: Protecting the Vulnerable from the Winds of Change

Over a year following the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has yet to issued its election autopsy. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it failed to concentrate enough on addressing everyday financial worries. In focusing on the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, liberals overlooked the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Warning for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed 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 replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's core nations, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, supported by significant segments of working-class voters. Yet among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to troubling times.

Major Challenges and Costly Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They encompass the war in Ukraine, maintaining the momentum of the green transition, dealing with 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 report last year on European economic competitiveness called for massive investment in public goods, to be financed in part by collective EU debt.

Such a economic transformation would stimulate growth figures that have flatlined for years.

However, at both the pan-European and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “frugal” nations resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. But the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Price of Political Paralysis

The reality is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through spending cuts and increased inequality. Acrimonious recent conflicts 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 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 stated that it would focus any benefit cuts at foreign residents.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

In the US, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were deeply disingenuous, as later Medicaid cuts and fiscal benefits for the wealthy demonstrated. But without a compelling progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Policymakers must avoid giving this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.