This is a really interesting and helpful post – thanks for writing and sharing it. For those of us who are not union members but want to be prepared, where do we get started and what levers do have to pull on? The good-society / enviro / justice groups you mention in the comments?
Start talking to people. Even at the local level any political or social groups you are involved in could participate in something like this. It seems important now to to get people thinking about it before it happens.
I’m appreciative that you are writing this and sharing it now. There is a woeful lack of practical and realistic planning on the left. I’m curious, beyond the AFL-CIO and union leaders, who else you think should marshal a strike in this instance? Seems like cultural leaders will be of vital import…
I think for example a whole coalition of good society groups--ACLU, environmental groups, AARP, Rotary Club, along with all labor groups, etc. You could build a really large coalition along these lines.
The goal of a general strike is to make it impossible for a dictatorship to effectively govern and force a political solution. It would have to be part of a nationwide push to prevent Trump from stealing the election successfully.
This is a timely essay. Planning and preparation are the best way to deal psychologically with catastrophic risk.
I hope the idea of a general strike begins to get lot of play in our national conversation. It's hard to imagine exactly how it would affect our day-to-day life; let alone how it would work as a strategy. What could be the unintended consequences? It would happen while Biden is still in power so we wouldn't have armed forces deployed against peaceful citizens yet.
Planning is psychologically better than wringing our hands, but a general strike is scary. My immediate reaction is to look back on the first year of Covid and reflect on what worked and what didn't in staying physically comfortable (food, TP, medication, transportation etc.) Only with the carefully managed involvement of public sector unions would this work. And then we'd have to have near unanimous citizen support from individual Democrats, otherwise people will immediately go negative because their kids can't go to school so their own jobs are threatened; the buses and subways are on limited schedules, fresh food is not arriving in the grocery stores etc. It's human nature (at least in our society) to look at the present as the worst possible scenario even if the future looks demonstrably worse.
Unions plan carefully before they go on strike to minimize the impact on individuals. We (i.e. the entire population who understands the impact of a Trump presidency) would need to do the same. Hence begins the conversation ...
Typically general strikes would be for a set time. And then repeated if necessary. Of course in this situation it would really depend on what was happening with the government and the military. But laying the groundwork in advance is very important.
A HUGE upside to early planning and making these plans publicly known is the incentive to business to AVOID such strikes...To the extent that a lot of businesses are pro Trump, Lets see how willing they are to sacrificing their bottom line to their love of fascism...
I think it's interesting to note that Robert Lifton and Timothy Snyder (I'm sure others, too) talk about how important it is to take to the streets. People I'm close to agree that trump will do everything he can to established a fascist, authortarian regime. Personally I'm ready to sign up to participate in a heavy-hitting strike. I've always thought that we Americans didn't have the gumption-- some won't, as you say H, until the trauma smacks them in the face.
It's really something to be considering this kind of planning, these kinds of scenarios, especially with regards to someone like trump. What a time to be alive.
Incidentally, I'd love to see you talking about this with Mehdi Hasan or Emma Vigeland or Sam Seder or some such.
Also, question - do you think the effectiveness of a general strike would be tempered by how much of the country is still so enamored of him? Especially when you consider how many of them are armed?
I think you just have to emphasize that you're drawing a line to protect the existence of democracy and free and fair elections. If Trump voters who were union members ignored a call for a general strike that's their choice but that wouldn't stop it from having a significant impact.
Hamilton, have you considered that there could be problems from the left including roadblocks (ANTIFA), riots, fires if Trump wins. Remember approximately 19 people were killed in the summer of riots including a black police officer and a girl. Many proprietors including black businesses people lost their businesses up in smoke.
Oh! It occurred to me that there was something similar to a general strike that happened after trump was elected. In light of his administration's awful treatment of non-white immigrants, immigrant owned business voluntary shut their doors for....I wanna say it was a day. Could be a blueprint...
It gives me hope that folks like you are thinking and writing about this. I wrote a similar piece about what our strategy should be in the event of coups and civil wars:
I think the biggest one could be school/teacher strikes. I can easily see coalitions forming especially since the majority of teachers lean to the left...It would also 'positively' add the stress of what to do with kids who aren't in school...An extra layer of effect
"The option for the public to close their eyes and ignore what is happening is taken away. We do not allow the collective societal shrug, the almost imperceptible descent into dreary fascism that allows most people to continue on in mostly normal ways. We all make clear that the country does not run for a dictator."
The election wasn't stolen, at least not as this post described it. But we are getting a dictator nonetheless. How much more must be taken away before a general strike becomes a reality?
Yesterday the American electorate affirmatively voted for a self-proclaimed "dictator on day one." The presidency wasn't stolen, but the authoritarian will soon be in command and backstopped with official immunity. So, does the premise of this piece ("We all make clear that the country does not run for a dictator") still hold?
How I pray we don’t need this kind of preparation, but the pragmatist in me says we might. Thank you for leading the discussion— and action, if it comes to that.
If fascists steal the election, the first step is not to react, unless you just want to die. See what happened and how it happened, and who was responsible. Figure out what you can realistically do to have some kind of negative effect on them and their movement. Group up with others so you have a fighting chance. Create or join an opposition movement. And then make it hurt.
This isn’t something to take lightly. People who disagree with you are not necessarily your enemies. Words have meaning. America and fascism does not go together.
Your stance that this is the worst generation of Republican operatives is twaddle. Previous generations of American politicians voted to bomb millions of innocent civilians in Cambodia, Laos and Iraq to name only three countries from a long list. Last time I checked Hilary Clinton has still not conceded that she lost the 2016 election. She and the corrupt DNC blame some spurious “Russian interference” when she simply ran a dreadful campaign.
Here is the real issue, dear Hamilton, you don’t like democracy. You don’t like the fact that tens of millions of people who should be in unions and voting for a universal public health system are instead choosing to vote for Trump. I don’t agree with them but given the alternative I understand why they would do so. Nor do I support anti democratic ideas from elitists like you “exploring the Union movement”.
Here is an idea. Go do some real journalism. Go outside your little bubble and actually live/speak with/to working class people. Then you may begin to understand their fears, needs and the awful situation this country has given them.
"As a baseline, imagine something like this: Trump loses the election. He alleges fraud, the Party backs him, the Supreme Court ultimately backs him as well. The election is legally stolen. What then?"
This is an amazing set of "what ifs" that cannot come to pass. Certification is by the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, and will still be in their control on the certification date even if they lose the majority for the session that will start in January. If Trump brought a "Bush v. Gore" type thing to challenge the Senate, he does not have the votes on this court to pull that off unless there was clearly visible, incontrovertible proof of vote counting shenanigans at the state level, in which case it wouldn't be wrong to pay attention to that. "Allegation of fraud" would not come close to uniting the Republican Supremes in favor of seizing the election.
"Other than essential services like fire and police and health care, everything stops." Let me bring the perspective of a 20 year firefighter and current Captain. No. That all stops, too. If the teamsters strike, who's driving the tanker trucks that bring the diesel to the pumps we use to keep our trucks able to respond? Who's operating the municipal water systems that make sure the hydrants are fully pressurized? How does medical care operate with the impact of the strike on transportation and energy? How do police, fire, and EMT agencies, on fixed manpower, respond to the big increase in crime and other incidents, deliberate and accidental, that will happen as opportunists seek to take advantage of the vulnerabilities the strike opens up?
"This is the power of the general strike. Stuff stops." Yes, it does. And because of that, it includes a drastic reduction in the ability of the existing, fixed number of emergency responders and equipment to do what we do, accompanied by a significant increase in the need for it.
Even if the impossible set of "what ifs" in this article would come to pass (and just for purposes of discussion of this general strike proposal, not because they could), the general strike it is recommending would be disastrous. The answer is strategically targeted work stoppage and related forms of civil disobedience, not an all-encompassing general strike.
So you're not even going to engage with my explanation of why emergency services will not operate as normal? Because they most assuredly will not. They can only operate as normal in a limited strike. That's why it's a normal part of strike planning -- we don't have general strikes here. But if you could actually bring about a general strike, emergency services would have problems of both supply shortage and demand increase.
This is a really interesting and helpful post – thanks for writing and sharing it. For those of us who are not union members but want to be prepared, where do we get started and what levers do have to pull on? The good-society / enviro / justice groups you mention in the comments?
Start talking to people. Even at the local level any political or social groups you are involved in could participate in something like this. It seems important now to to get people thinking about it before it happens.
I’m appreciative that you are writing this and sharing it now. There is a woeful lack of practical and realistic planning on the left. I’m curious, beyond the AFL-CIO and union leaders, who else you think should marshal a strike in this instance? Seems like cultural leaders will be of vital import…
I think for example a whole coalition of good society groups--ACLU, environmental groups, AARP, Rotary Club, along with all labor groups, etc. You could build a really large coalition along these lines.
The March For Our Lives people, Ultraviolet, etc, BLM, students rallying against genocide...
I agree entirely. But then, questions: there’s a general strike, and then what? What are the achievable goals? What’s the endgame?
The goal of a general strike is to make it impossible for a dictatorship to effectively govern and force a political solution. It would have to be part of a nationwide push to prevent Trump from stealing the election successfully.
This is a timely essay. Planning and preparation are the best way to deal psychologically with catastrophic risk.
I hope the idea of a general strike begins to get lot of play in our national conversation. It's hard to imagine exactly how it would affect our day-to-day life; let alone how it would work as a strategy. What could be the unintended consequences? It would happen while Biden is still in power so we wouldn't have armed forces deployed against peaceful citizens yet.
Planning is psychologically better than wringing our hands, but a general strike is scary. My immediate reaction is to look back on the first year of Covid and reflect on what worked and what didn't in staying physically comfortable (food, TP, medication, transportation etc.) Only with the carefully managed involvement of public sector unions would this work. And then we'd have to have near unanimous citizen support from individual Democrats, otherwise people will immediately go negative because their kids can't go to school so their own jobs are threatened; the buses and subways are on limited schedules, fresh food is not arriving in the grocery stores etc. It's human nature (at least in our society) to look at the present as the worst possible scenario even if the future looks demonstrably worse.
Unions plan carefully before they go on strike to minimize the impact on individuals. We (i.e. the entire population who understands the impact of a Trump presidency) would need to do the same. Hence begins the conversation ...
Typically general strikes would be for a set time. And then repeated if necessary. Of course in this situation it would really depend on what was happening with the government and the military. But laying the groundwork in advance is very important.
A HUGE upside to early planning and making these plans publicly known is the incentive to business to AVOID such strikes...To the extent that a lot of businesses are pro Trump, Lets see how willing they are to sacrificing their bottom line to their love of fascism...
I think it's interesting to note that Robert Lifton and Timothy Snyder (I'm sure others, too) talk about how important it is to take to the streets. People I'm close to agree that trump will do everything he can to established a fascist, authortarian regime. Personally I'm ready to sign up to participate in a heavy-hitting strike. I've always thought that we Americans didn't have the gumption-- some won't, as you say H, until the trauma smacks them in the face.
It's really something to be considering this kind of planning, these kinds of scenarios, especially with regards to someone like trump. What a time to be alive.
Incidentally, I'd love to see you talking about this with Mehdi Hasan or Emma Vigeland or Sam Seder or some such.
Also, question - do you think the effectiveness of a general strike would be tempered by how much of the country is still so enamored of him? Especially when you consider how many of them are armed?
I think you just have to emphasize that you're drawing a line to protect the existence of democracy and free and fair elections. If Trump voters who were union members ignored a call for a general strike that's their choice but that wouldn't stop it from having a significant impact.
Hamilton, have you considered that there could be problems from the left including roadblocks (ANTIFA), riots, fires if Trump wins. Remember approximately 19 people were killed in the summer of riots including a black police officer and a girl. Many proprietors including black businesses people lost their businesses up in smoke.
Oh! It occurred to me that there was something similar to a general strike that happened after trump was elected. In light of his administration's awful treatment of non-white immigrants, immigrant owned business voluntary shut their doors for....I wanna say it was a day. Could be a blueprint...
It gives me hope that folks like you are thinking and writing about this. I wrote a similar piece about what our strategy should be in the event of coups and civil wars:
https://open.substack.com/pub/angryeducationworkers/p/the-working-class-is-in-danger
I think the biggest one could be school/teacher strikes. I can easily see coalitions forming especially since the majority of teachers lean to the left...It would also 'positively' add the stress of what to do with kids who aren't in school...An extra layer of effect
"The option for the public to close their eyes and ignore what is happening is taken away. We do not allow the collective societal shrug, the almost imperceptible descent into dreary fascism that allows most people to continue on in mostly normal ways. We all make clear that the country does not run for a dictator."
The election wasn't stolen, at least not as this post described it. But we are getting a dictator nonetheless. How much more must be taken away before a general strike becomes a reality?
Yesterday the American electorate affirmatively voted for a self-proclaimed "dictator on day one." The presidency wasn't stolen, but the authoritarian will soon be in command and backstopped with official immunity. So, does the premise of this piece ("We all make clear that the country does not run for a dictator") still hold?
I'm an LUPD and I'm going to put all my time and planning into actually winning the election.
How I pray we don’t need this kind of preparation, but the pragmatist in me says we might. Thank you for leading the discussion— and action, if it comes to that.
If fascists steal the election, the first step is not to react, unless you just want to die. See what happened and how it happened, and who was responsible. Figure out what you can realistically do to have some kind of negative effect on them and their movement. Group up with others so you have a fighting chance. Create or join an opposition movement. And then make it hurt.
This isn’t something to take lightly. People who disagree with you are not necessarily your enemies. Words have meaning. America and fascism does not go together.
Self indulgent rubbish.
Your stance that this is the worst generation of Republican operatives is twaddle. Previous generations of American politicians voted to bomb millions of innocent civilians in Cambodia, Laos and Iraq to name only three countries from a long list. Last time I checked Hilary Clinton has still not conceded that she lost the 2016 election. She and the corrupt DNC blame some spurious “Russian interference” when she simply ran a dreadful campaign.
Here is the real issue, dear Hamilton, you don’t like democracy. You don’t like the fact that tens of millions of people who should be in unions and voting for a universal public health system are instead choosing to vote for Trump. I don’t agree with them but given the alternative I understand why they would do so. Nor do I support anti democratic ideas from elitists like you “exploring the Union movement”.
Here is an idea. Go do some real journalism. Go outside your little bubble and actually live/speak with/to working class people. Then you may begin to understand their fears, needs and the awful situation this country has given them.
Check out this book https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/hamilton-nolan/the-hammer/9780306830921/
"As a baseline, imagine something like this: Trump loses the election. He alleges fraud, the Party backs him, the Supreme Court ultimately backs him as well. The election is legally stolen. What then?"
This is an amazing set of "what ifs" that cannot come to pass. Certification is by the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, and will still be in their control on the certification date even if they lose the majority for the session that will start in January. If Trump brought a "Bush v. Gore" type thing to challenge the Senate, he does not have the votes on this court to pull that off unless there was clearly visible, incontrovertible proof of vote counting shenanigans at the state level, in which case it wouldn't be wrong to pay attention to that. "Allegation of fraud" would not come close to uniting the Republican Supremes in favor of seizing the election.
"Other than essential services like fire and police and health care, everything stops." Let me bring the perspective of a 20 year firefighter and current Captain. No. That all stops, too. If the teamsters strike, who's driving the tanker trucks that bring the diesel to the pumps we use to keep our trucks able to respond? Who's operating the municipal water systems that make sure the hydrants are fully pressurized? How does medical care operate with the impact of the strike on transportation and energy? How do police, fire, and EMT agencies, on fixed manpower, respond to the big increase in crime and other incidents, deliberate and accidental, that will happen as opportunists seek to take advantage of the vulnerabilities the strike opens up?
"This is the power of the general strike. Stuff stops." Yes, it does. And because of that, it includes a drastic reduction in the ability of the existing, fixed number of emergency responders and equipment to do what we do, accompanied by a significant increase in the need for it.
Even if the impossible set of "what ifs" in this article would come to pass (and just for purposes of discussion of this general strike proposal, not because they could), the general strike it is recommending would be disastrous. The answer is strategically targeted work stoppage and related forms of civil disobedience, not an all-encompassing general strike.
I think saying that this cannot come to pass is just naive given the reality of where we are. But I hope you're right.
Allowing for emergency services to continue to operate is just a normal part of strike planning and does not change the underlying point.
So you're not even going to engage with my explanation of why emergency services will not operate as normal? Because they most assuredly will not. They can only operate as normal in a limited strike. That's why it's a normal part of strike planning -- we don't have general strikes here. But if you could actually bring about a general strike, emergency services would have problems of both supply shortage and demand increase.