It’s like this, you peacefully protest and defy the structures that have power over you, the fascist state puts their boot on your neck(as we see here, the police state and fascist goons), displaying their arrogance and violence against people at home and abroad, in turn destroying and tarnishing their image and turning away moderates and those new to politics, still questioning on who to support, in theory cutting down on their constituency.
This is extremely effective against liberals who historically care more about image than policy, so hurting their image is the way to get them to enact policy. Lately, the vote blue no matter who campaigns seem to try and counteract this and play off fears of Trump, but that’s a digression.
This is supposed to enact material change by changing policy (it’s worked time and time again in this country, sometimes being coupled with violence)
And now we see Shawn again using unions to also affect material change. If unions strike in solidarity, capital owners lose money and they control the politicians through bribery, this can force policy change or again, crackdowns
So you see, when people have solidarity, all it takes is bravery and peaceful defiance to push a fascist state over the edge, break the dam and get policy change.
Staying home questioning why people are being brave by doing the small things, is actually how you get nothing done.