After having combed through all the relevant posts and comments, including deleted ones, it is clear to me that this was a power grab.
Whether or not it was done with the best interests of 50501 in mind remains to be seen. My read on the situation doesn't have high hopes for that. Now would be the time to refocus on the local level. We are supposed to be decentralized; this movement is more than the couple of asshats at the top.
I'm starting to wonder if this is the reason Trump et al have had so little to say about the movement. Maybe they were counting on it imploding at some point. Who knows if they had info we don't.