AFTER ACTION REPORT CENK UYGUR RESIGNATION

MEMORANDUM FOR THE JUSTICE DEMOCRATS

FROM: JOHN BOULDEN

SUBJECT: After Action Report, Cenk Uygur Resignation from the Justice Democrats

1. This after action report is prepared in accordance with the wishes of the over one thousand Justice Democrat supporters.

2. The following is information regarding the crisis itself:

Location of Conflict: Primarily the internet. Conversations took place by phone and over text services

Principal Involved Persons: Cenk Uygur, Saikat Chakrabarti, Kyle Kulinski, David Koller

Duration of Main Crisis: 22DEC2017 – 28DEC2017 6 Days

Initial Action Purpose: To assuage concerns regarding gender rights issues following the publishing of an article by The Wrap

3. Sources of Conflict: The Justice Democrats are a political organization which seeks to speak for the broadest cross section of progressive and liberal issues. Cenk Uygur and David Koller had in the past written things which seemed to support sexist view points.

4. Evaluation of Agreements and Operating Procedures

a. Staff of The Justice Democrats work for low pay according to Mr. Chakrabarti. The higher leadership positions in the JD are all unpaid. The staff working in line positions, that is to say the day-to-day running of the organization do this as a full time job. They are paid very little compared with what they could be doing outside of the organization. It is in this regard that a threatened walk out was deemed a credible threat should this situation be handled in a way not agreeable to the staff.

When presented with the draft of this document Mr. Chakrabarti had this to say “probably wouldn’t focus on the low pay as much. I think whether they were paid low or high, it was more that enough staff threatened to resign and replacing them would be difficult. Plus, it would be unfair to the staff (which are the people that built the organization/recruited the candidates/do all the day-to-day work, and do it more for passion than money) to have to work for someone they did not want to work for. So I would rephrase this as I think the actual cause was not really captured.”

b. Agreements Between the Justice Democrats and The Young Turks (impact on future success of JD candidates) At this time there will continue be direct communication between the JD organization and TYT network. They will continue to cooperate in all ways as before with the only difference being that Mr. Uygur and Mr. Koller will not be listed in legal documents as being connected to the JD organization.

TYT will continue to produce digital video content in support of JD backed candidates and continue to hold the same broad values regarding money in politics, equality for all, and other progressive causes.

c. Operational Planning (adequacy) At this time there is no evidence that any hard planning took place in advance of this situation. At this time all limiting factors to the success of the movement are dealt with as they happen. This strategy is unfit for implementation and should be reviewed and replaced as soon as possible in order to avoid situation of this nature going forward.

After being presented with a draft of this report Mr. Chakrabarti wanted to make clear that they have “create[d] planning docs every month (both organizational strategy, a budget, comms plan, field plan, and campaigns plan). Our strategy definitely focuses more on how to win races than on planning for conflict between Cenk and the staff though”.

d. Training : At this time it is unknown what training plans or procedures are in place. The advice of this report is to immediately draft agreed upon written plans which in the broadest possible terms dictate the appropriate responses to issues regarding the past of any member of the JD organization as well as addressing reactions to future communications failures. A standard letter of acknowledgment should be drafted and signed by all employees of the JD which details the procedures of conflict resolution. It is also advised that basic training in verbal communication be provided to all staffers in order to allow them to understand how people generally react when confronted with negative information regarding their person.

5. Issues Affecting Continued Cooperation:

a. Minor Obstacles – Solutions Developed:

Lack of communication between Leadership and Staff – In my conversation with Mr. Chakrabarti he stated several times that he was the sole point of contact between the JD and Cenk Uygur. Considering the structure of the organization this seems likely to be true. It is advised in the future that a staff call be held at regular intervals so that the staffers can air grievances and discuss issues which are causing confusion and moral problems before the feelings unpinning the grievances reach a crisis point.

It is also clear that communication in regards to who is actually in charge broke down. Mr. Chakrabarti, as quoted above, feels that the primary motivator of the tension was that staffers did not want to work for Mr. Uygur. I find this hard to understand as Mr. Chakrabarti also states that there was no contact between Mr. Uygur and the staff, and Mr. Koller had an extremely minimal role in the organization and did not interact with staff. My concern here is that it seems as if Mr. Chakrabarti was the main line manager for the JD staffers. He is the one the seen as their direct boss. This situation simply did not need to occur the way it did if Mr. Chakrabarti had been equipped to manage the morale and expectations of his staffers. Putting pressure on Mr. Uygur to resign his seemingly ‘in name only’ position over his past statements speaks more to the lack of research his staffers did prior to joining the organization than it does to Mr. Uygur character. Mr. Chakrabarti speaks of the passion drive and skill of his staffers, but never explains why they joined the organization in the first place with out looking at who founded it. I believe that this requires too much of a stretch of the imagination to trust fully. It is my opinion after getting the draft notes from Mr Chakrabarti that he never considered Cenks past at all, and only when he and his staffers were questioned about Mr. Uygurs past did they begin to doubt his ability to be the face of the Justice Democrats.

b. Major Obstacles – Solutions Developed:

Disunity between the Staff and Leadership Corps – It is clear that from the foundation this has been a project fueled by passionate feelings, particularity anger. Mr. Chakrabarti disputes this saying that anger is not the major motivator, but admits to there being tension in the past. The leadership corps of this movement have a wealth of experience organizing movements and communicating in public. The major issue is that the aforementioned skills are not equally mastered by one person. On the side of the group are communicators Cenk and Kyle, on the side of organization are Saikat and David. It was clear from my conversations with Mr. Chakrabarti that verbal communication is not his strongest skill. He has worked in his own words as a ‘deal maker’ and he points to the fact that he has started companies as proof of his deal making abilities, He also said that he was employed at Stripe was tasked with getting people to love Stripe products and answer questions. Mr Chakrabarti also wanted me to make it clear that Mr. Koller was only involved so far as he prepared financial documents for the group.

Mr. Chakrabarti made it clear to me that in person Mr. Uygur is a strong personal communicator and leader. The disconnect is that Mr. Uygur did not appear to habitually speak in person to the staff of the JD. This lack of personal interaction between Mr. Uygur and the staff at JD caused them to only know Mr. Uygur by way of his appearance on TYT shows. TYT is a well run platform by which progressive causes are promoted, however it is common knowledge that Mr. Uygur can seem tone deaf on issues regarding women. Fans of TYT productions are aware of this issue, and account for it in consuming media produced by TYT. The staffers at JD are spending time which could be used watching full TYT productions in other ways. It is clear that the staffers are using all of their productive hours to seek out and recruit candidates which have a chance of beating established Democratic political office holders in a primary contest and the chance of defeating a Republican challenger in the race. This requires dedication to the platform proposed by the JD organization. The actual day-to-day running of the JD consists of more activities than is appropriate to list here, however it is clear that these activities do not leave time for critically watching any streaming video programs let alone TYT productions. This situation was not accounted for at the foundation of the organization and was unknowingly allowed to cause a major morale issues. Activists who saw the #Metoo movement as their primary reason for joining the progressive activist cause felt alienated. They were put in uncomfortable positions in having to explain Mr. Uygurs less considered comments on air when they had no real knowledge of what was said. A perception developed among the staffers that the spokesman for the JD movement did not reflect the views of the employees as a whole.

The feelings of alienation among the staff and their interactions with others outside of the organization which required them to defend comments by Mr. Uygur put them in a untenable position. This was not discussed in detail with the leadership in a way which would have addressed the on going drop in morale. This occurred in my opinion because of the relative lack of experience in dealing with morale problems in relation to high skilled voluntary staffers who make up the majority of the JD staff.

On the day the the Wrap website published a story about Mr. Uygurs past this poor state of morale erupted in frustration among the staff of the JD. The staff expressed an ultimatum to Mr. Chakrabarti. They informed him that they would leave the organization if something was not done about the perceptions of Mr. Uygur and his lack of ability to communicate on womens issues effectively. Concerns were raised in regard to the matter surrounding Roy Moore, and the potential attacks which could compare Mr. Uygurs past in regards to his associates and writings to Moore. The posts commenting on teenagers were presented as a potential flash point where a comparison could be made to Moore’s historical actions.

A call was immediately arranged between Mr. Uygur and the staff of the JD. It is evident that this was a crisis response action and not a regular event. Unfortunately the staff of JD were still angry and this anger was expressed to Mr. Uygur. He immediately went on the defensive due to the fact that this was a settled issue as far as he was concerned. His defensiveness further incensed the staff of the JD. It was agreed that Mr. Uygur would publicly step down from his position at JD and this matter would be dropped. Mr. Chakrabarti wanted to make it clear after reading the staff notes that Mr. Uygur was defensive from the start, and that staffers were not angry. I have not been able to reach TYT network or Mr. Uygur for comment on this matter.

Later on the evening of 22DEC2017 Mr. Uygur decided not to step down on air during a broadcast of The Young Turks news and comment main show. He was caught up in the preparation for his appearance on air, the administration show it self, and the various matters that go along with running a media organization that he was unable to communicate to the JD his change of heart and the adjustment to the plan. His lack of a statement regarding this matter was seen as him going back on his word by the staff at JD in the absence of any other information. In the moment anger regarding this matter and the handing of the situation had reached a crisis point. Mr. Chakrabarti decided to release a statement addressing the issue. In my conversation with Mr. Chakrabarti he admitted to being hurt by this perceived breach of trust, and this caused him to release a statement which was overly harsh in it’s language. A call was made between TYT and JD and the fact that this failure was one of communication was established between the groups. At this point it was agreed that Mr. Uygur would no longer work directly with JD and he would address the issue on the next broadcast of his show.

Mr. Kulinski unsatisfied with how this situation was handled resigned in protest.

The communications issue which caused the morale issues with the staff is also the primary cause of Mr. Kulinski resignation. It is my opinion in the absence of a statement from Mr. Kulinski that he saw this entire matter as an attack on Mr. Uygur by the staff of the JD rather than the massive failure in communications and morale management that it was.

6. Specific Problems Anticipated in Future: The right wing activist groups which oppose our political positions have observed this entire ordeal. The strategies employed in this event match the strategies employed in the matter involving Sam Seder. Although it is the opinion of Mr. Chakrabarti that the case of Mr. Uygur is more analogous to the case of Matt Taibbi and his written account of his time in Russia there are clear parallels in the execution of this attack and the one which effected Mr. Seder. This shows an effort by conservative activists to review the past of any high profile progressive spokespersons. Steps should be taken immediately to have an internal review of the past of any spokesperson, and decisions should be made on responses to future attacks of this kind. In the current toxic political climate it is not unlikely that the leadership corps of all progressive groups will continue to be the subject to Ad Hominem attacks of this nature as the facts of our policy positions are very rarely in doubt.

7. Special Notice for Future Leaders: This case clearly shows that an active and angry base will make their displeasure known. The average person online will not consider all of the facts and arguments. They will not take nuance into account when making a judgment call. Please always keep this in mind when issuing a statement. A statement issued before all the facts are clear will backfire and cause more damage than the initial issue.

8. Leadership Training Recommendations: Use this entire matter as a training case study of the importance of clear and concise communication not just among the leadership corps but also among the staffers doing the work on the ground. This matter is as clear a case of poor communication and the resulting missteps associated with this issue.

9. Success Stories: The resulting petition in support of Mr. Uygur generated 1,362 signatures at the time of writing. This clearly demonstrates a numerous and highly motivated base of support for progressive leaders. It also shows that the people supporting the JD and TYT are concerned more about current events than historical failings of individual leaders. This event caused people to take an interest in the matter and that leads to potential future opportunities to motivate these same people to act in support of progressive causes across the spectrum.

10. Lessons Learned: Poor communication has the potential to kill other wise strong movements. In the absence of clear factual information, all persons involved will make a decision based on the worst case scenario. In the matter of Mr. Uygur not issuing an agreed upon statement the lack of communication on the change directly lead to the assumption of betrayal. This was an incorrect assumption, but given the current climate of social media, and the general lack of respect and honesty on the internet as a whole this conclusion is understandable. Combine this with the fact that very few, if any of the staffers, who number no more than 30 persons has any contact with Mr. Uygur outside of his TYT productions and you can see how this assumption took root.

11. If anyone has any questions or needs further information about the resignation of Cenk Uygur, contact John Boulden at ark40K@gmail.com.

///SIGNED///

JOHN H. BOULDEN

Former SSgt, USAF

EDITED 30DEC2017 at 1714 to correct formatting and grammatical mistakes.

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