General strikes don’t magically appear when we call for them—they’re the product of trust, planning, and shared risk. As Anat and I discussed on this week’s “Meeting the Moment,” Friday’s ICE Out of Minnesota Day of Truth and Freedom—which calls for no work, no school, and no shopping—has taken an extraordinary amount of planning, deep and longstanding relationships, and broad, bottom-up buy-in from labor and other groups. It also has a clear demand—get ICE out of Minnesota—that can conceivably be met. If you don’t have all of that, don’t try for a general strike where you live!
We also discussed what general strikes can and can’t do in the US compared to other countries, and the history of why they are so hard to pull off here. (Thanks/no thanks, Taft-Hartley Act and Roberts Court!)
And we reflected on what it means to be one year into Trump’s second term.
Almost everything that’s happened was knowable in advance given what Trump promised to do—but there has been no accountability for the Democratic leaders, media, and professional sensemakers who failed us by systematically minimizing that threat during the campaign. There’s a danger in the mentality of “we’ll fix it in the midterms,” as if democracy is on pause and damage isn’t accumulating every day. It creates a sort of bystander problem, where everyone is looking around waiting for someone else to do something, instead of realizing that we are the ones we’re waiting for.
Too often, things are framed as whether Trump or Democrats are winning or losing—not whether all of us are losing and what the impacts on all of our lives are. And too few recognize that Americans trust neither party to fix the problems in their lives, which causes us to overread polling fluctuations on which party is more trusted on which issue. If Democrats want to claim the world would be better for working people with them in power, they don’t have to wait for the next election — they should demonstrate that like Mamdani did when he showed up for striking nurses.
The horrific ICE raids we’re seeing are unfortunately what you see when the logic and tactics of 25 years of American counterinsurgency policing abroad becomes the template for policing us. As Anat put it, “authoritarianism is imperialism brought home.” Thankfully, the #BraveOfUS are showing up for our neighbors and communities.
