Social Strikes vs. MAGA Tyranny

What if MAGA rule so dismantles the institutions of representative democracy that normal institutional processes are insufficient to overcome tyranny? Around the world, general strikes, “people power” uprisings, and other forms of “social strikes” have overthrown violent, armed dictatorships. What conditions might put social strikes on the agenda in the United States?

An authoritarian takeover is under way in the US, complete with the arrest of opposition political leaders, unrestrained executive usurpation, and lawless physical violence and kidnapping by masked, unidentified, armed federal agents. As detailed in a previous commentary, forms of mass nonviolent “people power” uprising have forestalled or reversed such takeovers in many other countries, ranging from the Philippines, to Serbia, to South Korea. Yet the United States has little tradition of using such means – which I refer to collectively as “social strikes” – to oppose tyranny. Could social strikes nonetheless play a significant role in countering Trump’s developing autocracy?

Conditions for social strikes

What conditions put social strikes on the agenda?

• Growing disaffection of the population leading to a “great repudiation” by a large majority. As a study a century ago noted, “strike conditions are conditions of mind.” Social strikes are unlikely to happen before a large proportion of the population are enraged at the MAGA tyranny, dubious that more moderate forms of action will suffice, and willing to take personal and institutional risks to oppose it.

• Growing self-organization and capacity to act by the movement-based opposition and forces of social self-defense more broadly. This involves cooperation among national organizations and networks. Even more important is local organization, formal or informal, that is able to act and coordinate with others. Such networks need to be able to persist despite pervasive repression.

• Actions by the movement-based opposition that win wide popular support and participation. “Exemplary actions” that visibly oppose the harm the regime is doing and show that people can stand up and resist it can help lay the groundwork for mass participation in social strikes.

• Internal conflicts within the regime. As Abraham Lincoln (and the Bible) observed, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” A divided regime is less able to engage in a strategy of either consistent repression or of manipulative concessions.

• Undermined pillars of support. Every regime depends on the support of its supporters, whether that takes the form of campaign contributors, propagandists, or soldiers, police, or other agents of repression.

• Disaffection in the instruments of repression. Turning points in civil resistance in the Philippines, Serbia, and many other cases came when police and soldiers opposed a coup or refused to fire on protestors.

• Lack of concessions or reforms from the regime. It is a truism that the powerful defeat challenges to their power by a combination of repression and concession. A ruling force may appear strong because it never backs down, but in the long-term such pig-headedness is likely to force more and more of society into opposition.

• Ineffectiveness of other forms of opposition. Many people, quite reasonably, will prefer conventional forms of institutional resistance to ameliorate their conditions rather than undertake risky ventures like social strikes. The failure of less drastic forms of resistance often lays the groundwork for social strikes.

Clearly, such conditions for social strikes do not currently exist in the US. However, there are harbingers that may point toward the emergence of such conditions. For example, millions of people have participated in a series of days of action opposing MAGA autocracy and its gestapo tactics, its destruction of food, housing, and healthcare for millions of Americans, and its destruction of our climate and environment. Polls demonstrate that a majority of the public has increasingly opposed such Trump initiatives.

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