Ashik for DSA Cochair

Our Vision for DSA

Democratic Socialists are the ruling class’ worst nightmare: an ever-expanding, organized, militant mass movement turning the socialist horizon into America’s reality.

We’re passing transformative legislation that beats back the right and makes the center look like the joke it is, each hard fought campaign and battle growing our movement and setting the stage for the next.

We’re seizing state power, kicking capitalists out of office by putting hundreds more socialists into office, who multiply our outside strength into increased reach, power, and tangible results.

We’re driving a revitalized, socialist labor movement, redefining what is possible in the US. If you’re in a union, you’re organizing with DSA to take power back for the working class. If you’re not in a union, you’re a DSA member organizing one.

We’re running multifaceted campaigns that unite all three.

How? Because we’re a million members strong and counting. Because our our propaganda machine is shattering overtown windows and making the truth of DSA’s analysis undeniable to anyone. Because we as Marx said, it’s not enough to understand the world. The point is to change it.

A lot.

Who is Ashik?

Ashik is an organizer’s organizer: an uncompromising fighter who puts principle over personality, consensus-building over clout, and socialism over any sect. If we’re serious about defeating the ruling class in our lifetimes, there’s no other choice.

Growing up in a Muslim, immigrant household where family members feared discussing politics in their own homes, Ashik knew something was wrong. Occupy Wall Street showed him that it was capitalism and imperialism—but not what to do about it. Turning to ecosocialism, he co-founded the Climate Mobilization and pushed the idea of Green New Deal-scale action into the mainstream—but hit up against the limits of the nonprofit model.

Finally, he found it: Bernie and DSA, where so many would unite across differences to struggle for a visionary mass politics. He helped lay the groundwork for Metro DC DSA’s now-powerhouse electoral program, brought together DSA’s national climate and labor wings for the first time through the PRO Act campaign, and got elected to the NPC in a landslide.

On DSA’s highest leadership body, Ashik grew as respected behind the scenes as admired in the spotlight:

When the NPC needed someone to shoulder the logistical burden of Secretary Treasurer, he brought unprecedented transparency to DSA’s budget.

When DSA needed a compelling face to defend our anti-imperialism in the pages of the New York Times, Ashik turned a press disaster into an overton shifting media moment.

And in a term wracked by paralyzing infighting, Ashik kept finding ways through: winning equitable funding for all national campaigns, and breaking past budget blamecasting by introducing income-based Solidarity Dues.

It’s no wonder Ashik is the longest serving member on the current NPC, or that his fellow NPC members immediately elected him to chair the Steering Committee. Because beneath fueling his quest to understand and unite us all is is a blazing drive to do what we all must to if we’re going to win: whatever it takes.

Socialists Must Lead

In 2016, we became a movement. But in 2023, it’s clear we must become the movement. The kind the US hasn’t seen since the labor and civil rights eras.

We’re already the strongest US socialist force in generations. Chapters nationwide win historic tenant protections, minimum wage hikes, and the biggest Green New Deal program ever. Put hundreds of open socialists in office (and kicked hundreds of neoliberal shills out in the process). Play key roles in a new wave of labor organizing nationwide.

But if we’re serious about socialism as more than a personal brand, we need to make sure these peaks become the floor.

That won’t happen with laissez faire socialism: the passive fundraising, reactive recruiting, and overall comms chaos that defines us by our loudest moments instead of our best. That means a national organization whose party infrastructure fuels all our work from the foundations. A fully funded DSA that actively recruits an an army of new members 24/7, whose coordinated propaganda machine can go toe-to-toe with the billionaires trying to stop us.

The truth is: we are up against the most powerful people in the world. It’d be a whole lot easier to retreat from the challenges of using what power we do have than risk failure. To retreat to sectarian silos, doomscrolling, and fighting each other instead of our real enemies in the ruling class. Or of settling for becoming “Democrats+.”

We must break down walls of division inside and out. We must meet the people where they’re at, whether it’s their doors or the national news. And we must do it from the rank and file all the way up to leadership. Which is why we need a Co-Chair like Ashik, who always has done whatever it takes to make us stronger.

The far right, economic inequality, and global temperatures are rising fast. But we’ll rise faster. To become the mass, socialist movement history and future deserves. Not every socialist agrees on everything, but we can all agree on this: Socialists Must Lead.