When the French government increased taxes on gasoline in order to reduce emissions, the countryside erupted. The American left learned from the example of the gilets jaunes; they gave up the idea of taxing carbon in favor of subsidies and regulations in order to mute the objections from the populist right
On the other hand, most of the American right has learned from the demonstrations regarding Macron’s pension reform bill that cutting Social Security is a non-starter, at least for now. As I’ve noted before, there is a constituency for entitlement cuts in the GOP that will never go away, but as long as the reactionaries are calling the shots, they won’t happen.