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In an interview with MS NOW’s Alex Witt over the weekend, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) indicated that a nationwide general strike might be the next thing needed in order to oppose President Donald Trump’s authoritarianism.
Raskin made clear to viewers of the program that he didn’t believe a general strike, on its own, could bring about huge changes, but rather that it had to be done in conjunction with other actions.
“We’re not going to have one magic solution to the problem that ails us,” Raskin said on Sunday. “It’s not going to be the courts, or the House, or the Senate, or the people in the movements. It’s going to be all of it together.”
Raskin added:
Everybody needs to be working in unison to defend constitutional democracy and freedom in the country, against this authoritarian clampdown, and the unleashing of state terror against our people in the communities in America.
He also gave immense praise to Minnesota demonstrators who, on Friday, took part in a statewide general strike.
“I think the people of Minnesota have shown us further, with their mass demonstration and general strike, the direction that we may need to go in nationally in order to send the message that American society does not accept this authoritarian derailment of the U.S. Constitution,” Raskin explained.
Dozens of unions and hundreds of businesses allied themselves with the general strike in the Gopher State last week, with participants agreeing not to go to work or school and to refrain from economic activities. A massive demonstration also took place in downtown Minneapolis, with tens of thousands of protesters marching in the streets despite wind chills in the double-digit negative numbers.
“It is time to suspend the normal order of business to demand immediate cessation of ICE actions in MN, accountability for federal agents who have caused loss of life and abuse to Minnesota residents and call for Congress to immediately intervene,” an explainer on the website ICEOutNowMN.com said.
“We’re not powerful people. We’re not rich. We don’t have access to people in power, but what we do have is our labor power,” Kieran Knutson, president of Communication Workers of America Local 7250, told Zeteo.
The conditions might be ripe for a nationwide general strike, as polling shows deep opposition to Trump on multiple issues. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this weekend (with some respondents weighing in after Trump’s social media posts attacking Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday) shows that the president’s approval rating is tied for its lowest level since the start of his second term, with only 38 percent approving of his job performance. Meanwhile, 59 percent said they disapprove of the way Trump is handling his duties.
Trump is also doing poorly on specific issues he’s performed well on in the past. He receives a -21-point approval rating for his handling of the economy, for example, and a -14-point approval rating for his handling of issues relating to immigration.
Several commentators have expressed the need for a general strike at the national level.
“Clearly, we cannot wait until 2028,” Emily Woo Yamasaki, a member of the UAW Local 2320 and an organizer with the Freedom Socialist Party, said over the weekend at a forum in New York City. “A general strike can’t be built overnight, but it is more urgent than ever.”
Natasha Lennard, a columnist at The Intercept, wrote that the Minnesota strike last week provides a blueprint for a nationwide movement.
“The task ahead of us, in the face of the government’s unending violence and cruelty, is to take up, share, and spread the practices modeled by networks in Minnesota…thanks to Minnesota’s resistance, we can see how to go on,” Lennard wrote in a recent column.
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