What would a general strike in the US actually look like? [View all]

Calls for a general strike in the US are growing. It's important to understand how to organize one, given their key role in overcoming tyrants around the world.

Jeremy Brecher April 8, 2025

Something is in the air: A perception that American democracy and livable conditions for working people may only be saved by the kind of large-scale nonviolent direct action variously called “general strikes,” “political strikes,” or, as I will refer to all of them, “social strikes.”

Calls for mass disruptive action are coming from unlikely places, like Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, an organization normally associated with legal action through the courts. When Romero was asked in a recent interview what would happen if the Trump administration systematically defied court orders, he replied, “Then we’ve got to take to the streets in a different way. We’ve got to shut down this country.”

Similarly senior Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern said, “We can’t just sit back and let our democracy just fall apart. What we need to think about are things like maybe a national strike across this country.”

Some in organized labor are also entering the fray. Sara Nelson, head of the Association of Flight Attendants, recently said that American workers — no matter what they do or what sector they are in — now have “very few options but to join together to organize for a general strike.” (She led the organizing for a national general strike that successfully deterred Trump’s attempt to shut down the government in his first term.)

FULL story: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/04/what-would-general-strike-in-the-us-look-like/