In the end the fundamentals were with Trump - now Europe must work to respond

In the end, the fundamentals were too much. Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States. As others, including UCL Policy Lab collaborator Luke Tryl, have pointed out, incumbents in inflation-hit countries around the world have lost time and again in recent years, and in the end, the same was true in the United States.

Kamala Harris may have fought hard, starting from a poor position following Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate in the early summer, but a pervasive economic pessimism fuelled by inflation, and a deep-seated sense that the government doesn’t fight hard enough for working-class communities has done for the Democrats. It’s important to say, as proven in elections around the world, that voters hate inflation; they see it every day. It’s too tangible to avoid and too sticky to forget. 

On the border too, much like in Europe, Harris also faced challenges to which she did not have an answer. Across the Western world, right-wing parties have tapped into a feeling of chaos and disorder, with the sense of a government losing control of who is able to enter its territory. The weaponisation of these issues and the hardening of attitudes towards migrants in some of Trump’s base have played their part in enabling a second victory for the now 78-year-old President-elect. 

It will be necessary for Democrats to reflect on what went wrong and what they need to do differently next time. There were obvious missteps along the way - it was clear to the world, and most Americans, that President Biden was too old, and withdrew from the race too late. Similar  echoes of the 1960s were also seen with foreign affairs deeply dividing the left’s base. 

Yet, it’s also worth reflecting on the need for Democrats, and those who share their politics more broadly, to once again confront how many ordinary Americans view them as distant from their everyday concerns. As David Axelrod recently summarised, the Democratic Party still seems to approach non-college-educated Americans like "missionaries or anthropologists" always with a message that says “we're here to help you become more like us”.

On the economy, progressives have found out the hard way that a failure to deliver on the everyday economy alongside the long term can be costly. As has been mentioned in previous discussions with US colleagues, there is a real need to invest in infrastructure, particularly the technology needed for net zero. Yet there is also a need to focus on the everyday economy, wages, and broader support for ordinary workers. This work is now more urgent than ever. 

How governments build or maintain support for net zero in the face of growing attacks will be crucial, and a focus on the everyday as well as the big picture now feels more urgent than ever. 

The result will mark a stark shift for domestic US politics. As Dr Thomas Gift, co-director of UCL’s Centre on US Politics made clear when he spoke to us following the results.: 

“A second Trump term promises a traditional Republican orthodoxy of deregulation, tax cuts, and efforts to cut government waste — coupled with an unprecedented pledge to go after political adversaries and to take an axe to many democratic institutions and norms”.  

In the UK, the new Labour government will reflect deeply on these themes as they think about their own re-election campaign in the years ahead. More immediately, thoughts will turn to how Keir Starmer, David Lammy, and others can work with other long-term US allies in response to a second Trump term. The future of Ukraine comes into particularly sharp relief, as does the question of tariffs. 

On the world stage, Gift believes a second Trump administration will mean a bolstered form of protectionism. “Trump signals a return to an "America First” foreign policy - a belligerent isolationism that is hostile to multilateralism, sceptical of international institutions, and largely uninterested in working with traditional allies like the UK abroad”.

In light of this, spending on defence, already set to rise, will likely need to rise faster. However, as others have pointed out, any policy that saw the US leave or weaken NATO would ask even bigger questions of European security. Discussions, which had already begun in European capitals, will have to step up, with Keir Starmer set to work out where next for UK defence, security and foreign policy. 

Here at the UCL Policy Lab we’ll continue to work with our colleagues in the US. James Baggaley, our lead on engagement and partnerships, recently met with those at the New America Foundation’s New Practice Lab. Led by Tara McGuinness, they have long been conscious of the need to design new approaches to public services and the social safety net. An approach developed from the bottom up, meeting people in their everyday lives, not in bureaucratic abstraction. 

It will be this work and the work of millions like them that many will turn to in the coming months and years. As McGuinness reminded us earlier this year, it is in our shared connection and humanity that we find the hope and energy to build a better politics.

When the dust settles, we all hope that work can begin anew.