The Purge

On January 12, 2021, an individual, who remains anonymous behind the username "Default," posted a series of outlandish claims against a group of volunteers within Movement for a People's Party (MPP) who had signed a petition for change within the organization. That petition was presented on November 10, 2020. 

During the night of January 12, 2021, and the morning of January 13, 2021, a number of organizers (estimates are around 60) were expelled from the organizations platforms and tools without notice. 

On January 13, Brana posted the message below to the chat platform used by the organization. Brana claims the organization has multiple sources for these allegations.

That evening, Brana held a virtual all-volunteer meeting to make these accusations to the entire community of volunteers within MPP. That video is also below.

@channel Dear MPP Community:

This is a message from the Coordinators’ Circle to inform and alert our community of a serious and coordinated effort to destabilize and derail our movement. It involves attempts to exploit private supporter data and our organizing platforms to siphon people to splinters groups, including one seeking to lead people back to the Democrats. It also involves a campaign to spread false information about the movement and turn people away from building a major new party. Democratic reform organizations like Justice Democrats, Our Revolution and DSA grew quickly after the 2016 election. But following the election, pandemic and depression of 2020, we are the fastest growing progressive organization nationwide, tripling our size over the last year and reflecting a profound shift in the zeitgeist of the country. That has made us a major threat to the establishment parties and the Wall Street corporations that fund them. A major threat to the public and private forces that govern the most powerful country in the history of the world. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, our success has made us the target of a campaign to infiltrate and disrupt the movement, a tactic used to destabilize progressive movements from the Civil Rights Movement to Occupy Wall Street. These efforts have sought to turn our Slack into a toxic workspace, replete with personal insults and abusive comments towards volunteers. These have prompted a flood of messages to national coordinators asking that we remove these individuals and restore a professional and productive work environment in Slack. These include messages from volunteers distressed to the point of wanting to leave a movement and cause that they care deeply about. This disruption is profoundly unfair to those who wish to work in good faith, and most importantly, to the millions of working people who go without basic needs including food, housing, and healthcare, and are counting on our movement to transform this country.

In the last couple of weeks, the Coordinators’ Circle has been given more information concerning the infiltration and attempts to sabotage the movement and launch of our state parties. There are at least two splinter groups that are attempting to draw away volunteers from our movement, “The Revolution Within'' and “The Way Forward,” they are collaborating and the latter is routing members back to the Democratic Party. The attacks on our movement escalated further on Monday with an attempt to hack and alter the results of our vote to switch messaging platforms from Slack to Guilded. The attack involved submitting a deluge of fake votes and impersonating other voters. It was detected and thwarted in a couple of hours. We have identified most, if not all, members of Slack working to undermine the movement and have removed them from MPP’s workspaces. Despite the attempts to derail us, our movement continues to make great strides, having led the Force The Vote campaign for Medicare for All in the middle of this pandemic and gained more than 30,000 members over the last month. Also having been joined by a remarkably talented and diverse Advisory Council that helps bring great prestige and credibility to the movement.

We sincerely apologize for the frustration this has caused members of our community, and the way that it has distracted from our mission and goals. The environment in our MPP Slack has been toxic and untenable. Some of you have been the targets of abusive messages. We acknowledge and hear the dozens of you who contacted CC members and pleaded with us to remove these individuals. We regret that their actions have turned away volunteers new and old. Going forward, we promise that any members who act abusively towards others or perpetuate a toxic environment in our workspace will be warned and/or removed expeditiously by the CC according to our Community Agreements, as they were during the Bernie campaigns. We also will not tolerate people and groups that attempt to siphon members to other organizations or spread false and damaging information about our movement. Our Welcome Circle will be vetting and interviewing all new entrants to our team platforms. We have also made our attorney’s aware of the attack. We take the privacy of our members’ data and their right to a professional workspace very seriously, and will take swift legal action against anyone who steals or misuses their information.

To keep the general channel and other public channels clear for work and welcoming to new members, we have created this form as a place to send feedback, concerns, and suggestions. Please use the form and we will respond as quickly as possible. For anyone who may have any questions, we will have a call at 7 pm ET tonight to discuss this and building a resilient movement. We will post the link in this channel later today. Thanks to all of you who have been so committed to our movement through these trying times in our personal and national history. Our movement is a beacon of hope in a dark time. We may be the only ones who stand between the people of this country and a far more capable authoritarian coming to power in four years. We appreciate and cherish everyone who is doing the hard work and organizing to see the People’s Party succeed and better the lives of millions of people at home and around the world.

Sincerely,
The Coordinators’ Circle