A dear, dear comrade hit me with a set of serious questions about the efficacy of calling for a general strike to stop ICE. It was not a question premised on rejection but on efficacy as currently outlined. Some of their critical points were centered on the efficacy of such a strike hurting or hindering the Trump regime, since the regime has clearly demonstrated that it is perfectly willing to punish and outright starve the strongholds of the Democratic Party (and even elements of his own base with tariffs and cuts to SNAP). So, how will a coordinated strike, that would largely be conducted in Democratic Party-run states and urban strongholds, hurt this regime? This is especially the case if few, or any, of the transnational corporations that dominate the US economy support or participate in the strike (keeping in mind that most of the businesses that supported the strike in Minneapolis were small âmom and popâ businesses).
Let me be clear, mass strikes, in and of themselves, are not going to bring the Trump regime to heel, particularly if they are primarily concentrated in the coastal states and the urban strongholds of the Democratic Party. It is going to take a lot more than strikes, even though we wonât get there without them.
Strikes are absolutely necessary, but not sufficient.
In order to dislodge the Trump regime, the strike movement must focus a critical portion of its energy on fracturing the Trump coalition, and fracturing it decisively. It is going to be extremely difficult to separate the regime from its true believers. The movement has to start by reaching the forces who are aligned primarily on economic lines with the Trump coalition. The lowest-hanging fruit in that orbit are the Trump forces in the labor movement itself. They must be appealed to on account of Trumpâs empty promises regarding the reindustrialization of the empire, while deliberately seeking to eliminate organized labor.
The second, and more critical target, is the farmersâthe small corporate aggregates, and the family farmers, particularly those in the âredâ statesâthat form the geographic base of the Trump coalition. These forces are essential to move in order to ensure that the mass strike isnât just an urban phenomenon, with the racial undertones that would imply. No, it has to hit red states, rural and suburban areas, and it has to shut the economy down at the point of production, distribution, and consumption on as wide a scale as possible. Trump and his coalition would feel that, literally. In order for the mass strike to work, a genuine national farm-worker (and beyond) alliance must be formed and strategically deployed.
Now, to be clear, a general strike is a means to an end. The question is What is, or should be, the end, in this case? Getting rid of Trump and the Trump regime would be the most popular answer. I would argue that while that objective is a necessary starting point, without a broader and deeper set of objectives, that singular objective in and of itself would just lead to another turn of the wheel to a dead endâreturning the Democrats and their neoliberal politics and imperatives to power.
The general strike being called for must not repeat the mistakes of the No Kings Movement in having no demands. Neither should it be pigeon-holed into being an effort to win the 2026 midterm elections for the Democrats nor an effort to preserve the constitutional order or the false agreements of bourgeois society. It must aim to deal with the challenges of our times head-on. To that end, it must push back against the threats of AI and automation, the acceleration of climate change, the concentration of capital and the extreme inequality it is breeding, and, ultimately, the capitalist system itself.
This is not a short-order task, to be clear. But, if we are going to pull off a general strike, it shouldnât be half-assed, particularly if it might ignite massive repression from the Trump regime and a civil war.
We must take aim at it all. But, we have to do the necessary organizing work to build our capacity to win, not just put up a valiant fight. To this end, I want to offer to this movement the Build and Fight Formula and to offer it in this context, along strike lines.
Too Black
Author and poet Too Black discusses the inevitable repression that follows nonviolent action.
The press for a general strike is the opening part of what we style as the practices of positionâpractices a social movement has to build towards. The practices of position are those things people are actually doing, but which we have to bring to scale in order to build our collective capacity and aggregate our power. But, per our analogy, think of the practices of position as our strike fund. The deeper the strike fund, the better our chance to win our demands.
Now, in the real world context we find ourselves in, there are millions of people engaged in the practices of position all throughout the empire, best exemplified by all of the mutual aid projects that have emerged since the Occupy Movement, the countless community gardens that been built over the last 20 years, or all of the Maker Spaces and Fab Labs that have developed over that same period of time, and the numerous self-defense brigades that emerged in virtually all of the cities invaded by ICE this year. Unfortunately, however, these initiatives arenât sufficiently coordinated to exercise maximum power. To this end, in order for the general strike actively being called for to win, we are going to have to get millions more people involved in developing the capacities outlined in the practices of position, and we are going to have to accelerate our capacity to federate and coordinate at scale quickly. Very quickly. And to be clear, it is these practices that will enable us to move past the mere ouster of the Trump regime, and instead put us in position to go for it all.
So, when considering the general strike, and assessing if it is worth pursuing, I hope you endeavor to answer yes, but to condition that yes on doing the organizing to bring in new forces, fracture the Trump coalition, and build a new world from the bottom up that goes beyond the limits of the bourgeois order and the two-party duopoly that preserves it within the US empire. Dream big, leave no stone unturned, and aim for the stars.
Build and Fight!
More on the January 30, 2026 general strike
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More on the economy from Grassroots Thinking
Kali Akuno
Too Black
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