It took the frontlines experience of a pandemic for healthcare workers to start doing this; what’s your nationwide motivator going to be?

A classic

If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it.

In a cross-posted thread, I’ve seen plenty people mentioning that others don’t even go voting. I think this is a bit defeatist; at least here in Brazil, most non-voters say stuff like “voting is pointless, it doesn’t change anything”. This means that they could potentially join a strike, if they were certain that it would improve things for them.

It’s probably the same in other countries.

A few points on increasing odds of success:

• Never say how long the strike should last. The uncertainty makes it feel worse for your opponents; doubly so for corporations (as they hate unnecessary risks, and the strike going on for a long time is a risk for them).
• Have a concise list of clear demands. At least some of them should be obviously advantageous to the strikers, even the non-politicised ones.
• Some politicisation of the strikers is good. Just keep in mind that most don’t want to hear about theoretical stuff. (Do explain the theoretical stuff to the willing ones though.)
• If you want 100, ask for 200. Let the other side negotiate it down back to 100. (They’d still do it if you asked for 100 - except that they’d negotiate it to 50.)
• Watch out for false flags stirring trouble. They’ll do shit like throw stones at residential windows (to get non-strikers pissed at you, and justify the cops [ACAB] pepper spraying you.) And in general keep good discipline among strikers, always reminding them why, how, who, and against whom you all are striking.
• Also watch out for groups trying to co-opt the strike into “their” strike. They should feel welcome to join, but they should not seize control over the whole.
• Uni students are specially eager to join. Don’t ignore them.

Source: mostly personal experience. I’m nowadays disengaged, but a decade or so ago I was in a socialist party, and joined quite a few strikes.

Over the past century and a half, capital has largely defanged demonstrations and strikes. Just because it worked a century ago doesn’t mean it is relevant today (and even then it was insufficient, given we still live in capitalism).

The only point of elections (and other constitutional checks) is to prevent there being dictators, not to change the system.

What works better is a long term commitment to stop unnecessary spending

Only buy the bare necessities, and the profits of almost every major American corporation will plummet.

They can deal with less labor, they don’t need as much as they used to. But the only thing keeping our economy propped up is people spending like there’s no tomorrow.

Stop buying, products and stocks. That’s what hurts these days.