npc for all

ashik S. | wilmington dsa

Briefly describe your experience in DSA

I am currently serving as co-chair of DSA, on my second term on the NPC. Over the past year I co-organized DSA’s presence to turn out hundreds of members from across the country to the March on DNC protests in Chicago in August 2024, and at Trump inauguration protests in DC in January 2025, with DSA chapters in coalition with Palestine solidarity organizations. I represented DSA in actions in solidarity with Gaza from a 5-day hunger strike at the White House with Zohran Mamdani, to national rallies demanding the release of illegally detained student protesters. I have represented DSA in a number of national coalition efforts, including with the Not Another Bomb campaign for an arms embargo against Israel with the Uncommitted Movement. I participated in international delegations to build relations between DSA and mass parties of the left in Brazil, Cuba, France, and Germany. 

I proposed DSA’s national Solidarity Dues Drive in spring 2023, when it was clear that DSA was facing a looming budget deficit over the next year, and led the internal organizing effort through the 2023 convention to build consensus for this as a major organizing and fundraising goal across DSA’s active membership. I set major fundraising goals for 2024 and helped lead the Solidarity Dues Drive over the next year, which has since raised over half a million dollars in recurring annual income, with over 2,800 solidarity dues payers, and succeeded in reaching almost its entire annual target of $720,000 by halfway through the year. This proved that DSA members are capable of organizing out of a budget crisis, and laid the groundwork for us to meet much more ambitious fundraising/organizing goals to grow DSA to the next level, once we have a strong enough political consensus to do so.

I joined DSA after Trump’s election in January 2017. I served on Metro DC DSA’s Steering Committee from 2018-2019, and helped set up what became We Power DC, a campaign for energy democracy in the capital. I helped create national organizing infrastructure to support chapter work toward an ecosocialist Green New Deal. I served on the committee for DSA for Bernie Sanders in 2020, and was a core organizer of DSA’s campaign to pass the PRO Act to expand worker rights with major labor unions, before being elected to NPC in 2021.

What strategic priorities do you think are most urgent for DSA to take on right now?

With Trump as president once again, this time with Elon Musk as an unelected billionaire tasked with stripping our government for parts, we are fighting the clock of climate crisis and rising fascism. It’s crucial for DSA to change from a patchwork of disconnected experiences to a democratic mass party that can reach as many people as possible, by proving we are credible fighters for working class demands to win state power against all the ruptures to come. 

We have to campaign to address cost of living issues, and show working class people it’s possible to organize and win universal demands for expanded public goods — even as the oligarchy attacks services, and scapegoats parts of the population they isolate and make more vulnerable, like immigrants and trans people.

We need to develop and scale up our ability to elect socialists across the country, and DSA’s capacity to co-govern with them. NYC DSA has backed our organization’s most ambitious campaign yet, Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of NYC. Twin Cities DSA is supporting Omar Fateh for mayor of Minneapolis. These highly motivating campaigns arise from years of work to build local Socialists in Office (SIO) programs powered by the respective DSA chapters. 

Right now relatively few DSA chapters have the capacity to organize this way, and national DSA does far too little to synthesize and share lessons learned, and support chapters who want to make the effort. We must change this, by nationally supporting SIO structure at every level of DSA. Building up these muscles across our organization is critical to being able to field multiple DSA cadre candidates for Congress and a socialist president by 2028.

With much stronger mass communications and active recruitment drives that emphasize how DSA is leading the fight against fascism in the United States, we can recruit many thousands of members to more than double over the next two years, beyond 150,000 DSA members across the country. I’ve learned a lot from my contacts in left parties like  MORENA in Mexico, La France Insoumise (LFI) in France, Die Linke in Germany, and most recently the new left party that Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana just announced they are starting — they have all focused on clear and consistent communications around a coherent platform and organizing campaigns. Some of them have learned from DSA over the years, and now we can learn to do more of what they do!

This is within our reach, and we should commit to transforming our capacity: with expanded labor and electoral organizing departments supporting strong campaigns across DSA; more full time organizers can be force multipliers to support DSA member-led organizing campaigns in chapters, particular regions, and perhaps statewide organizations; and seriously investing in building out our communications operations to hype our wins and inform and motivate our base — all to keep organizing in new DSA members at every level. We can keep strengthening how our strongest chapters operate, and raise the floor for how all chapters organize across the board.

Our current membership has the motivation to level up. Despite limited planning and less staff capacity from 2024-2025 compared to previous years, our solidarity dues drive and new member recruitment have resulted in over $1.4 million in new income for this year. With more dedicated planning, we are fully capable of raising millions of dollars to more than double our budget — so we can much more proactively keep recruiting, and collectively support a much larger range of the work to build the party. Socialist cash beats capitalist trash!

What should the next NPC do differently than the last NPC? 

I've seen a thousand flowers bloom in DSA... and I've seen many of them die. Now it's time to tend the garden and grow some crops.

We now have 8 years of experience since DSA’s rapid growth in 2017 to learn from successes across our chapters to transform our whole organization. During Trump’s first term, many of us were new to organizing and in a mode of “let anyone do anything.” That often led to siloed work without a lot of follow-through, that did not sustain or keep engaging new members over time. We often ended up tailing coalitions led by foundation-funded nonprofits, or self-selecting activist groups without mass bases or democratic structures. 

At this point, many of our chapters have enough confidence and strong enough internal democracy to set coherent strategies for outward-facing campaigns, leading politically with strong electoral programs and a deeper base in labor unions, so other organizations with aligned goals gravitate toward our power. 

Using everything we’ve learned since Bernie’s first run in 2016, we can cultivate dozens of Zohrans nationwide, using media power to popularize our democratic socialist vision, and political power to bring it closer to reality.

That means the NPC has to move beyond laissez faire socialism: the passive fundraising, reactive recruiting, and overall comms chaos that defines us by our loudest moments instead of our best.

The NPC has to set outward-facing organizing goals, and collective organizing priorities, that activate every layer of our membership, and motivate and actively ask new members to join. 

The NPC has to make decisions that organize to reach all DSA members, and keep organizing in new members — not face inward and only debate within the most active layer of members.

The NPC should post fewer statements aimed at already politicized activists, and invest much more time and effort in producing more outward-facing mass communications designed to appeal to all working class people. 

The NPC hasn’t organized a major recruitment drive since 2020, and the last recommitment drive was in 2022. Meanwhile, over 100,000 DSA members — more than our entire current membership — have simply lapsed due to passive attrition after one-time dues signups, and have not been systematically recontacted to rejoin DSA with recurring dues. Last year I motivated the NPC to finally end the one-times dues category — now we have to actively plan major recruitment drives, and fundraise at mass scale so we can invest in leveling up our organizing capabilities.

We have to lead with mass politics, and organize to build DSA first. If we want to make it beyond 2028, and eventually contest federal offices with the full power of DSA, not just as junior partners in a coalition, the NPC must support more chapters to build local proto-party organizations that bring together electoral, labor, and legislative organizing efforts, that organize to win on cost of living issues. 

What is your vision for DSA?

Over the first ever term as DSA National Co-Chair, I have had the privilege of traveling the country to talk to and work with countless DSA members across the country. In chapters big and small, strong and struggling, red state and blue, dense cities where members can take a train to a packed meeting and rural counties where you can only drive. From organizing with comrades all over the U.S. I am convinced that the playbooks we have developed in strong chapters can adapt to pretty much any population center in the country. 

I wrote a longer form vision earlier this year, imagining how we can establish DSA as a mass party all across the United States over the next 5-10 years: http://dsaforall.com/letter.

Our role is to become an even more effective party surrogate in the United States, and learn from the successes of our comrades in mass left parties around the world in countering the rise of the far right, like MORENA in Mexico, La France Insoumise (LFI) in France, Die Linke in Germany, and the Workers’ Party (PT) in Brazil. 

Within 5 years, I would like DSA to have developed core elements of a party apparatus, with fully independent organizing infrastructure that can co-govern with elected socialists at multiple levels of government—including a congressional slate of DSA cadre. This is within reach, if we continue extrapolating from what is working in the best developed Socialists in Office and electoral bloc formations in DSA, and particularly developing our own expertise in staff and fundraising operations.

We wage ideological warfare at the level of a national party,  cutting through the scapegoating tactics that divide the working class and pointing outrage at where it belongs: capital. Our propaganda operations include highly produced social media and video content, a quarterly DSA publication (both digital and in print!!) celebrating our organizing efforts and wins, a media team regularly securing hits in mainstream media, and highly consistent internal e-mail/texting operations that ensure our members are well informed and proud of DSA’s exciting wins across the whole org & always motivated to make the case to coworkers, family members, and neighbors to plug in. We define DSA on our terms not just to politics-followers, but the general public we must reach.

As a party, members are increasingly engaged at every level. The entire rank-and-file membership regularly engages with and votes on major decisions for the national party, from overarching strategic questions, to specific endorsements and campaigns. You no longer have to be steeped in DSA lore or know the most connected caucus members to influence the party’s direction, but are part of a thriving democratic, ground-up culture and structure, with a healthy expectation across the board of consistent engagement of every ring of the “organizing bullseye” out to supporters, as valued members of the organization who get to participate and feel represented in in collective decision making.

Within 10 years, major strikes with mass participation from labor unions with socialist leadership will have won materially consequential, highly visible, and explicitly politicized victories toward a Green New Deal — like social housing, public power, and free public transit in major cities across the country. Many DSA chapters across the country will have such sustained blocs of Socialists in Office able to drive agendas in local government, that they meaningfully enact “sewer ecosocialism” agendas. These 5- 10- and 20-year programs transform cities into thriving working class havens that have great quality of life for growing local populations, resilience to climate shocks and massive internal migrations that are underway across the United States and around the world.

Internationally, we have strong relations with democratic left parties and labor unions all over the world, who we can increasingly collaborate with on coherent shared messaging and organizing goals around immigration, trade deals, climate, anti-imperialism, and anti-militarist demands that have demonstrable impact on US government policies. We regularly send international delegations to meet and exchange with partner organizations that are tangibly connected to our US organizing campaigns and socialists in office. 

In this future, we’ve won significant victories at the state and municipal level of government on housing, climate, healthcare, transit, labor rights, and cost of living issues that have positioned us as the preeminent force in a growing bloc of working class power in the US. Even against a highly dysfunctional federal government and Balkanized population, millions of people have felt their lives improve as a result of our efforts, recognize DSA as the reason it happened, are raising expectations of what’s possible, and now trust and see us as a rising force prepares to govern nationally — the same way the people saw socialist parties in Latin America as the Pink Tide began.

What was your best moments in DSA? How did it feel? 

I think I have to say being present in Brooklyn in the last days of the NYC mayoral primary election, and being present the week of Zohran Mamdani’s victory. This was incredibly meaningful for me personally, and as a culmination of 8 years of organizing in DSA.

I spent the last 3 days of the campaign canvassing in Bay Ridge, the neighborhood I was born and raised in, and where much of my family still lives. Bay Ridge is like a small town in south Brooklyn, in the shadow of NYC’s only military base. It was pretty conservative with a strong “white ethnic” working class character when I was growing up, and where Muslim immigrants like my family were particularly scapegoated and surveilled by police after 9/11. 

I haven’t lived in NYC for over a decade, and so I’ve never been a member of NYC DSA in the period in which it has developed into such a powerhouse. I had never canvassed or been part of any kind of campaign in my home neighborhood. It’s become a much more diverse neighborhood over the decades I’ve been away, and NYC DSA members have organized several electoral campaigns there since 2017 which helped develop organizers including Zohran himself. 

The political shift over my lifetime was so palpable. It was almost 100 degrees out, but people across identity differences were glad to talk at the door about what campaign issues they were excited about, or nervous or unsure about his prospects, offer water or popsicles to beat the heat, and thank us for what we were doing. So many Arab and Muslim residents especially were anxious and excited and proud all at once. In one building, I hit about a dozen doors where most had already early voted, and almost everyone mentioned how meaningful it was that Zohran had spoken at their masjid months ago.

All the doors I knocked those days highlighted just how much better people are organized and politicized now than when I was growing up, and DSA helped make that possible. It felt like a homecoming to me, pointing out local landmarks and spots I used to hang out as a kid to my canvassing partners more familiar with hipsterish north Brooklyn. In the days afterward it was incredibly satisfying to see the block-by-block election results map in this neighborhood — especially the blocks of my canvassing turf, huge apartment buildings and strips of single-family houses alike, where Zohran swept with a resounding majority. 

I was at a South Brooklyn DSA election watch party in Sunset Park the night his victory was announced, and it’s hard to describe the feeling of shock and euphoria of understanding just how massive the margin of victory was. I looked around the room at comrades I had gotten to know after years of organizing — some who I spent hours with at mass direct actions for Palestine where many of us got arrested, and jail support afterward. Some who I’ve seen at town halls or rallies giving rousing speeches about the climate crisis and demanding public power. Some who have organized for years as teachers or graduate workers to reform their unions. Some who I’ve debated or disagreed with in DSA leadership, or on some internal matter at past conventions. Some who I’ve seen on and off for years at conferences, with late night rants about the state of the left in the US. Everyone had played some part in this win. We were all crying and yelling and celebrating, and reverent while watching his victory speech that put class politics front and center. It was so clear to all of us that this represents a major new stage in our development as a socialist organization in the US, and I felt deeply aware of my own arc as an organizer and how it was intertwined with the arc of everyone else in that room. 

For all the struggle and strife I’ve experienced in DSA, this felt like such a powerful moment of synthesis and transforming together to a new level of collective power.

What is your favorite movie?

Barry Lyndon. Also: Network, Z, Chungking Express, The White Ribbon

Fun fact about you outside of DSA 

I have been credited with developing the term “doomscrolling”

 kareem E. | nyc-dsa

Briefly describe your experience in DSA 

I became a dues-paying member the day Bernie Sanders dropped out. I had worked on his campaign as a ballot access organizer in 6 states and was devastated when he exited the race. Covid had just begun, and I felt like I was looking around, seeing the worst news story of my life every day, and knew I needed to do something. I joined Metro DC DSA and served 3 terms on the steering committee (May 2021- December 2023), including one term as chair of the chapter, chaired the 2021 chapter convention, and served as delegate to the 2021 and 2023 national conventions. During that time, our chapter won 2 electoral races, led many rallies, including a 1,000-person midnight rally at the Supreme Court the night Dobbs was overturned, which I helped organize, built ties with labor, namely Unite HERE 25 around picket line support and electoral strategy, and many other wins which I do not have space to name here.

In late 2023, I moved to New York City. I hit the ground running here by volunteering for election day visibility, knocking doors for our endorsed candidates, and participating in protests at NYU with the student encampments. Most recently, I was a GOTV captain for the Zohran campaign for the Lower East side and Chinatown. I am currently serving on the National Political Committee.

What strategic priorities do you think are most urgent for DSA to take on right now?

The United States is being ruled by a fascist administration that is exacting suffering here and abroad. The Democratic Party has totally failed to respond to the threat meaningfully. DSA is the only organization that has the infrastructure and the politics necessary to meet the moment. All of our work needs to be built around fighting the right as effectively as possible. 

What should the next NPC do differently than the last NPC? 

This NPC has not effectively set us up to be the preeminent antifascist force in this country. While DSA should not be endorsing non-democratic socialist nominees for president, a lack of any plan for engagement with the election was a massive missed opportunity to grow DSA and fight the fascist right. DSA has shown that we have the ability We need a plan for the next 2-4 years to effectively engage with major political events like elections and mass strikes, with an eye toward growing DSAs capacity to take on bigger and bigger fights. 

What is your vision for DSA?

Short term, DSA should be the preeminent anti-facsist force in the country, building ties with labor to build the basis for a workers party in the US. In the medium and long term, DSA should be competing successfully for power at every level from president to city council. 

What was your best moment in DSA? How did it feel? 

Best has got to be the Zohran victory, I have a lot of other peaks but this one is really unparalleled. The last time I allowed myself to get totally swept up in something based on pure belief that we can fundamentally change politics and expand the horizon of the possible was the Bernie campaign. The key difference here was that we created this from within our own organization. Not Me, Us is back in a big way, and this time we weren't gifted it, we made it ourselves.

What is your favorite movie?

Idk man O Brother Where Art Thou

Fun fact about you outside of DSA 

My background is in professional Tuba performance. I don't play it as much these days, but I am still an avid musician mostly playing guitar and piano at this point.

 frances G. | DSA-LA

Briefly describe your experience in DSA.

I joined DSA in 2017. I was a founding member of the New Orleans DSA chapter, and I served as co-chair of that chapter from 2020-2021. I moved to Los Angeles, where I got involved in the Labor Committee and served as co-chair of that committee. I first got involved in national DSA politics through the DSA Medicare for All campaign in 2019. In 2023, I ran for National Political Committee and have served on the NPC for the last two years! During my time on NPC, I have focused primarily on reforming our organization’s grievance + conflict resolution program.

What strategic priorities do you think are most urgent for DSA to take on right now?

Right now, we are in the midst of a major political crisis. Armed federal agents are abducting people from their workplaces, from their homes, off the streets. People are being arrested, detained, and deported for expressing their political beliefs. We are likely to face attempts at organizational repression under the Trump administration, and as extremist ideas become more and more normalized, we increasingly risk random acts of right wing violence against us as well. The broader political scenario that DSA will face during this term is a dark and frightening one, but there are pockets of light and hope that can sustain and orient us. For example, Los Angeles’ response to the ICE raids: coordinated neighborhood watch groups, urgent and ferocious resistance to the raids themselves, a legislative strategy, and popular education, all pulled together in just a few days. We have so much potential to fight back, and for this reason, one of the proposals at the Convention that I am the most excited about is the “Fight Fascism, Build Socialism” proposal.

What should the next NPC do differently than the last NPC? 

Over the past two years on the NPC, I’ve helped navigate real challenges: internal conflict, political disagreements, and the complexity of trying to grow a multi-tendency socialist organization. But I’ve also seen how much is possible when we act together and lead with our politics – from the No Money for Massacres campaign to the Zohran campaign in NYC. As stunningly challenging as this political moment is, I also see enormous potential and great opportunities for socialists to lead.

DSA must become a force capable of organizing against the far right, while also presenting a hopeful, transformative alternative vision for society that invites new people in. DSA can be a powerful vehicle for liberation; I’ve seen that firsthand. But we still have so much to do to realize our potential. I’m running because I want to be a part of helping us achieve that!

What is your vision for DSA?

Too often, DSA sits on the sidelines during important moments of political struggle. But people – all people – want to be a part of an organization that is fighting for them. We cannot wait idly by for the perfect moment to launch the perfect campaign or the perfect intervention. We have to be willing to be creative, to experiment, and to trust one another enough that we can act with urgency. When we fail to do that, we fail to present ourselves as a viable, fighting political org, and that is when we lose folks that should be a part of our base. There are cultural and structural barriers to entry in DSA too, and those should not be minimized. Those barriers also work to prevent us from being a truly multiracial working class organization. We need our decision making to be clear, democratic, and accessible to everyone. We need our campaigns and projects to have clear, actionable asks that engage everyone. And we need to be willing to really fight! 

What was your best moment in DSA? How did it feel? 

One of my best moments in DSA was when we won the campaign to save the public libraries in New Orleans. We pulled together a coalition of leftist groups and labor unions, and we went after a ballot measure that the entire city establishment was behind. We agitated, we knocked doors, we fought hard – and we won! Even a medium sized chapter like New Orleans can win big when we pick the right fights. 

What is your favorite movie?

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Fun fact about you outside of DSA 

I recently adopted a puppy from the pound! Her name is Caramel, and she is scared of: diesel engines, the bathroom, balloons, rainstorms, and being alone. 

 Carl R. | metro DC

Briefly describe your experience in DSA

I joined DSA while living abroad in 2018. I organized first with Tulsa DSA, knocking doors for a statewide race we had endorsed in, and helping with administrative capacity and work. I moved to DC in 2019 and got involved with Metro DC DSA, leading our DSA4Bernie work in 2019/2020 after the original leadership group was hired by the campaign. I then proceeded to serve on the chapter steering committee from 2022 to 2024, eventually chairing the chapter in my last term. I have been a leading electoral organizer since 2019.

What strategic priorities do you think are most urgent for DSA to take on right now?

We have to be the face of fighting the Trump administration. Millions of Americans want to do something to beat back fascism, and we can give them that: through protests, through disruptions of ICE raids, and by screaming at them whenever and wherever they come out in public.

We have to deepen our relationships with organized labor. Strike support, electoral coordination, and organizing workers into unions are all areas where we can have mutually beneficial relationships.

We have to keep winning elections. The Democratic Party has never been weaker - we must beat them and get elected to office in order to agitate and govern for our class. 

What should the next NPC do differently than the last NPC?

We lost essentially a year of recruiting on Donald Trump’s vision to destroy all pretenses of American democracy, viciously attack trans people, and try to reverse the remaining vestiges of the New Deal because our statements about the 2024 election were unclear and wishy-washy. We should do a much better job of clearly addressing the stakes and explaining what to do

What is your vision for DSA?

I want DSA to have millions of members and be able to take on both the Democratic and Republican parties at the ballot box. I want labor unions to see DSA as their party. I want every person in America to have an opinion about us, good or bad. I want us to control some state legislatures. I want us to be able to set the agenda in national politics with state power, street power, and strike power.

What was your best moment in DSA? How did it feel? 

My best moment in DSA was getting a personal shoutout at Councilmember Janeese Lewis George’s re-election party. Having my personal effort recognized - but much more importantly, standing in for the work of the whole chapter as its chair - meant all the hard times and struggles had been worth it. It had worked.

What is your favorite movie?

My favorite movie is all three lord of the rings, extended edition. It is one movie in three volumes!!

Fun fact about you outside of DSA

I’m an avid runner, and I paint miniatures.

 eleanor b. | nyc-DSA

Briefly describe your experience in DSA 

I’ve been in DSA for 6 years, doing field for every single electoral campaign cycle in NYC since Tiffany Cabán for DA in 2019. I was on the OC at NYU YDSA. I have supported the chapters Fundraising Committee. Most recently I’ve been leading 101s and helping onboard new members as our chapter doubles in size.

What strategic priorities do you think are most urgent for DSA to take on right now?

I think it’s really important that the organization strengthen our ties to labor and continue to support new rank and file organizing. I also think we need to scale up national’s capacity if we are going to mount a serious opposition to the current administration. We will need to run a massive slate of candidates across the country in the midterms + run high profile statewide campaigns, and that will require a lot of staff and administrative infrastructure that we currently severely lack.

What should the next NPC do differently than the last NPC? 

I believe the last NPC tended to be a mostly reactive force that didn’t feel like it offered a positive vision for the organization. I’d like to see the incoming NPC be laser focused on a proactive program of building DSA and fighting the right. We’d need to be better about being a real, felt presence in chapters.

What is your vision for DSA?

Quite frankly, the Zohran campaign has radically changed how I think about DSA. What I used to think might happen over a matter of decades, now seems possible over the course of years. I believe that the proto-party we are building in NYC can and should be done in all 50 states. I’d like to see DSA be THE progressive electoral force in every major city in this country. I’d also like to see it become the social and cultural home for left-adjacent workers.

What was your best moment in DSA? How did it feel? 

My best moment in DSA was the night of (and weeks following) the Zohran victory. I was surrounded by people I’d been organizing with since I joined the org years ago, my partner who I met through DSA, and so many others I’d just met that night but still shared a common vision and struggle with. One thing that is incredibly important to me about DSA is that moments like that, and these campaigns overall, can make us all feel incredibly close. For weeks following the election, strangers would stop me on the street when they saw my Zohran merch to share their excitement. At a time when we’re all more alienated than ever, it’s hard to imagine anything more moving than that. 

What is your favorite movie?

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Fun fact about you outside of DSA 

I was a competitive ice dancer for many years. I rarely ever skate now but the discipline has stayed with me, so I am used to juggling what could essentially be considered two full time jobs and frequent travel.

 sumter A. | atlanta dsa

Briefly describe your experience in DSA.

I have been a member of DSA since 2017. In the wake of the first Bernie campaign and the first Trump victory, I joined YDSA Georgia Tech, quickly growing it to the largest chapter in the country within 2 years and spearheading multiple campaigns around police violence and mental health resourcing on campus. We opposed far-right presence on campus and helped found GT's first wall to wall union.

In 2020 I became a chapter officer of Atlanta DSA as an at-large member. I then became the chapter recording secretary, establishing COVID response teams of chapter members to engage and protect each other. I also founded the chapter Operations Committee, which still exists to this day, now incorporating tech requests, membership data, website, member portal, and event planning maintenance.

I then served as Membership Secretary and Co-Chair, reestablishing regular monthly socials and political education events and serving as supervisor for our chapter’s first part time staff.

In other positions, I have served on the political education committee and the labor committee, coordinating strike support, union support efforts, EWOC and Labor Notes efforts and workshops, night schools, and more, while also developing our first labor industry groups and organizing roundtables with Teamsters, film workers, educators, and service workers.

What strategic priorities do you think are most urgent for DSA to take on right now?

First and foremost, DSA needs to develop basic party functions like communications, recruitment, and long-term retention. We have candidates, protests, and union connections in dozens of major cities across the country – DSA has the capacity to be the anchor point, the center of gravity for coalitions and other progressive and socialist organizations.

DSA also needs to be leading on issues. Everyone should know that DSA has been here and will continue to be here, locally and nationally. Everyone should know that DSA will keep fighting the root causes of Trumpism, as well as its worst symptoms. Working people need to know they can build the skills and political analysis to identify pressing issues and build momentum to win on those issues in the long-term -- as proactive agents, not reactive groups.

Internally, DSA needs to finally decide what direction it is going to take. We need to start (fund)raising the stakes of what our organization is doing. By building our money, staff, and volunteer commitment to campaigns we run, and by building discipline to actually carry out the decisions we make, we make our decisions meaningful. Our strength is our approachability and the size of our member base, but the time and capacity invested by volunteers is still ultimately a limited resource. DSA needs to teach our members how to use that energy wisely, on the things that will be most beneficial, and that often means making hard decisions about what to prioritize.

What should the next NPC do differently than the last NPC? 

The NPC has been dealt a poor hand for years. A lot of basic organizational infrastructure has been built from the ground up at the national level. However, it is time for the NPC to make proactive, principled approaches to national political questions, rather than reacting, bending each time the winds change. Our organization has been rocked by crises both internal and external, but DSA needs to start winning – everywhere – if we want to survive the new Trumpism.

If the next NPC is able to think 6 months ahead and make a plan to open resources up to chapters, DSA will be better for it. The NPC should establish fundraising organs, expand our staff, plan for concerted cross-chapter efforts, collect the lessons of chapter successes and failures, and become an activist organ for propagating successful practices.

The biggest failure of the NPC has been its inability to be relevant to chapters. Many members have no organic knowledge of or relationship to our national office. Collaborating with national bodies, or even with other chapters, sometimes means wading into a quagmire of conflicting interests that feels impossible to navigate. Instead of perpetuating this, the NPC should act as the established, constructive, proactive, and forward-thinking political leadership of the whole organization, working to organize our party from the top to meet the grassroots building up from the bottom.

What is your vision for DSA?

I have a simple vision for DSA – One Party, 50 States, One Million Members. 

DSA needs to become a mass party. The way the United States operates right now, politically, means that whoever achieves a mass party first will have the upper hand for a decade. American politics at the highest level is defined by consultants, celebrity figureheads, and dark money. It fails to engage the vast majority of the population any further than assigning them ideological teams and holding occasional votes.

If DSA becomes an organization capable of setting the narrative and picking the fights we want, we will win.

To become that organization, we need to undermine capital’s control of the workplace and the government. We have already proven that we can influence, engage, and recruit from tens of thousands of people by running viable electoral campaigns. We have already proven that we can successfully support union campaigns and organizing workers. The struggle to push the labor movement into a fighting stance has been slow and difficult, but we are positioning ourselves to lead a renewed confrontation with capitalism at its most vulnerable points.

Every chapter can learn to successfully organize these efforts locally, even if their conditions vary. And every chapter can learn to support our direct political work with base-building social programs and leadership development.

One Party, 50 States, One Million Members. If that’s the DSA you think we need, Groundwork’s program will get us there.

What was your best moment in DSA? How did it feel? 

The best moments are just before the peak of a campaign. Moments like late October 2024, when Atlanta DSA was on the verge of winning our first socialist State House member; or the Georgia DSA PRO Act events, when we still needed to push Manchin, Warner, and Sinema and had hundreds of good conversations per phonebank; or in the swing of strike support campaigns like Nabisco-Mondelez workers and the UPS campaign. These are the moments where everyone is paying attention, engaging critically, aligned in our mission, and full of energy in anticipation of our collective win. 

If we engage in thoughtful campaigns with intentional leadership development and clear goals and methods, we can build a DSA where the latter feeling becomes natural, and the former is a rarity.

What is your favorite movie?

Either Shin Godzilla (2016), Princess Mononoke (1997), or Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

Fun fact about you outside of DSA 

I love music! I play multiple instruments, support college radio, and go to shows as often as I can.

alejandra Q. | dsa-la 

Briefly describe your experience in DSA.

I joined DSA-LA in 2021 and have been deeply involved in labor and community campaigns. I co-coordinate the nonprofit circle of the DSA-LA Labor Committee. I’ve helped organized workers in nonprofits and immigrant communities, led digital comms campaigns for organizing efforts.

What strategic priorities do you think are most urgent for DSA to take on right now?

DSA needs to focus on building lasting worker power through clear, coordinated campaigns that connect national strategy to local fights. That means prioritizing labor, tenant, and immigrant organizing—especially in regions facing rapid economic shifts, union-busting, and right-wing backlash. We also need to sharpen our digital strategy to engage more working-class people where they’re at, and fight misinformation that divides us. Most importantly, we have to build trust and discipline internally so our movement can win real material gains for our class.

What should the next NPC do differently than the last NPC? 

I’m running to help build DSA into a disciplined, working-class organization grounded in real worker power. With my background in labor organizing and digital communications strategy, I want to strengthen connections between organizers across regions and help DSA win tangible gains for workers.

What is your vision for DSA?

DSA faces increasing attacks on labor rights, rising corporate power, and growing inequality. Our urgent challenge is to build durable worker power while defending gains against right-wing backlash. Internally, DSA should prioritize accountability, democratic governance reforms, and expand digital organizing tools to reach diverse working-class members.

What was your best moments in DSA? How did it feel? 

So many best moments! Honestly, meeting some incredible comrades who build community inside and outside of DSA. I’m also so proud of the conversations we had in our nonprofit labor circle in helping our DSA comrades learn how to organize their own workplaces. 

What is your favorite movie?

Star Wars Trilogy (but my favorite is Rogue One!)

Fun fact about you outside of DSA 

I played rugby in college! That’s probably the toughest sport I’ve ever played.

 cara T. | metro detroit dsa

Briefly describe your experience in DSA. 

I joined DSA spring 2020 while living in Louisville, KY during Bernie's second run and the uprisings after the murder of Breonna Taylor. I dove head first into organizing with the local chapter. I served as chapter labor committee co-chair for two terms, followed by a term as co-chair of the chapter. Throughout, I helped lead strike solidarity campaigns, develop chapter communications, and created the chapter's transit campaign--Get On The Bus--alongside ATU Local 1447. Nationally, I was on the Green New Deal Campaign Commission steering committee, and as its co-chair, launched the Building for Power campaign. I moved to Detroit in April 2025 where I’m supporting endorsed candidate Denzel McCampbell for Detroit City Council and the chapter’s transit campaign.

Last convention, I was honored to have been elected to the National Political Committee. I proudly serve as our National Communications Chair, where we’re expanding the committee to bring in more member-leaders. As Communications Chair, I developed and emceed the organization’s largest mass call following Trump’s election in November. I also led DSA’s communications for Socialism Conference 2024, March on the DNC, and Trump's Inauguration. I also liaise between the GNDCC, NLC, Editorial Board, Abolition WG, and the Trump Admin Response Committee. Throughout my term, I prioritized ensuring resolutions passed at 2023 National Convention were implemented, including the creation and election of the National Co-Chairs positions and Editorial Board. I also participated in the delegation to Cuba in October 2023 and a bilateral exchange with La France Insoumise in September 2024.

What strategic priorities do you think are most urgent for DSA to take on right now?

We must support our members to organize where they are, and if they are able and willing to, in strategic sectors–for a mass, democratic, militant, labor movement with high union density and participation levels. Meanwhile, DSA should also build strong institutional relationships in and with aligned unions in ways that will further our goals, like preparing for the 2028 General Strike.

Additionally, we need to grow the numbers of socialists in office not only at the state and local levels, but also at a federal level so that we can bring our vision and demands to the broader population. We also must defend Rashida in 2026 against the zionist AIPAC.

Some of our fights must be waged legislatively. We must prevent the attacks on the lives of our neighbors both in the US and abroad, create better workplace and living conditions, and allow us the ability to create the conditions we need to build the future we know is possible.

To win, we need to be an organization in the millions. We need to prioritize recruitment and retention–growing by running external-facing campaigns while also developing a propaganda machine, creating more social content and earned media which reaches the masses and popularizes democratic socialism even more.

What is your vision for DSA?

I’m running for a second term on the National Political Committee because I believe we can create DSA into the party of millions of working class people that we need to win, and I believe that I can help make that happen. My experience over the past two years on the body has shown me that we need to take building the party seriously. We’re fighting the clock and the future is ours for the taking. To do this, we must continue to develop internal structures and relationships between chapters and the national organization, organize external-facing campaigns that elect socialists to office and win material gains for the working class, and create a propaganda arm for DSA to reach the masses and show the world how the socialist alternative is here, and it’s time to join us. I believe my work on the NPC has shown that I am dedicated to making sure this happens, and I want to continue to follow through on expanding the National Communications Committee as Communications Chair. In addition, it is critical that we strengthen our relationships with our socialists in office, especially those in federal positions. As a member of Metro Detroit DSA, I’m looking forward to strengthening the relationship the national organization has with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and defending her in her upcoming reelection campaign in 2026.

What is your favorite movie?

Wayne’s World. I first watched this movie when I was probably 11 or 12, and I’ve seen it at least 30 times! 

Fun fact about you outside of DSA.

I lived in Paris, France for about 5 years. While I was there, I worked as a freelance photographer and photographer’s assistant, as well as a barista. I got to do some fun things like assisted in documenting vintage Louis Vuitton trunks and covering Paris Fashion Week, but these experiences also helped shape my political development. It was while I was in Paris that I learned more about and became and Marxist.