We haven't had a general strike. So while you may not appreciate the half hearted attempts at starting them, we haven't seen one yet.
In Ancient Rome, the republic only lasted as long as it did because the Plebians decamped one of their 7 hills and refused to work until their demands were met. in 500 bc, and again in 350 bc. In the first getting a written set of laws, before the rich just made shit up as they went, the 12 tables. But importantly also establishing the Tribunate. People's tribunes were elected by the Tribes, they got 3 in 500 bc, expanded to like 7 or I forget in 350 BC. Tribunes had veto power over the senate, were sacrosanct, and could give sanctuary.
Anyway each time they tried everything to get them back to work, and the plebians stuck to their demands, and won them. The power in them, we aren's massing neccessarily, we aren't marching on buildings necessarily, we are just not showing up for work. If we want we can do it in a way that prevents the feds and their state allies from abusing us physically at least. Attempts to crush any protests that do happen traditionally have the effect of spreading the strikes as well, looking back to the 20th century.
Strikes are our only real weapon. Shut downs are not, because the democrats won't win a game of chicken. They haven't won one yet and won't start now, they were chosen to be weak. Not only that, the government already has more money than they can spend, and the courts have already allowed the president to take money allocated for one thing and use it for another, and there is a trillion dollars sitting with the military for them to dip into, on top of the 180 billion for homeland security (and they are adding more on top of that right now, and more for Ice,) and 60 billion for Ice or whatever it was.
Besides, the reason for being of these democrats is not the common good, or preventing fascists from seizing control and putting a fix in, it's preventing popular reform, playing good cop to R bad cop for the plutocracy as they take what is ours, and extracting money from the government for their pals. It's never been more clear. Any fight that depends on democrats leading it is doomed to fail by design. The only way to shut things down is with strikes, and we don't have to picket, we can just not work.