Countering Europe's National Populists: Protecting the Vulnerable from the Forces of Transformation

More than a twelve months after the election that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic party has yet to released its postmortem analysis. However, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group released its own. The Harris campaign, its writers contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs 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 foremost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

While Europe prepares for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a message that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy indicates, is optimistic that “patriotic” parties 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 significant segments of working-class voters. Yet among establishment politicians and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to challenging times.

Era-Defining Challenges and Expensive Solutions

The issues Europe faces are expensive and historic. They encompass the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are more resilient to bullying by Mr Trump and China. According to a European thinktank, the new age of global instability could necessitate an additional €250bn in yearly EU defence spending. A major report 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 fiscal paradigm shift would boost growth figures that have flatlined for years.

However, 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 “budget hawks resist the idea of collective borrowing, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are profoundly unambitious. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the beleaguered 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 well-off will pay the price of fiscal tightening through austerity budgets and increased inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over pension cutbacks in both France and Germany testify to a developing struggle over the future of the European welfare state – 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 said that it would focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Avoiding a Strategic Advantage for Populists

In the US, Mr Trump’s promises to protect blue‑collar interests were deeply disingenuous, as later healthcare reductions and fiscal benefits for the wealthy underlined. But in the absence of a convincing progressive alternative from the Harris campaign, they worked on the election circuit. Without a radical shift in economic approach, social contracts across the continent risk being torn apart. Governments must avoid handing this electoral boon to the populist movements already on the rise in Europe.