The Rotten Core of Georgia Republican Politics

They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. So let’s open the windows and let it burn.

The Rotten Core of Georgia Republican Politics
By Jeremy McKeown

They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. So let’s open the windows and let it burn.

For years, I believed in the Georgia Republican Party. I believed in the platform, the principles, and the people. But what I’ve seen behind closed doors—what I’ve lived—has convinced me that the rot isn’t just in Washington or on the Left. It’s right here, embedded deep within the Georgia GOP and its so-called “conscience,” the Georgia Republican Assembly (GRA).

Let me be clear: the GRA and the GA GOP are, in practice, the same machine—two faces of the same compromised structure. The difference? The GRA was supposed to be the principled watchdog. The moral check. The grassroots backbone. But that’s the great lie.

The GRA: A Hollow Conscience with No Spine

Their slogan is “The Conscience of the Republican Party.” That tells you everything you need to know about what’s wrong with the Georgia GOP.

I’ve watched Alex Johnson and Nathaniel Darnell—the so-called leaders of this conscience—turn away from truth when it got too uncomfortable. I’ve seen them ignore blatant corruption and look the other way while good people were attacked, all because the offenders were their political allies. They claim to fight for grassroots accountability, yet their silence enables the very power games they claim to oppose.

They are polite. They are educated. And they are completely ineffective. Their brand of leadership doesn’t challenge evil; it coexists with it.

Neither Conservative, Nor Constitutional

Let me put it plainly: neither the Georgia GOP nor the Georgia Republican Assembly is fit to call itself “conservative.” And they certainly have no business invoking the Constitution in every other sentence like it’s a holy relic—because their actions betray everything it stands for.

If limited government were actually the goal, if liberty and accountability were truly the mission, they would be leading the charge to shrink bureaucracy, slash spending, and return power to the people. But they can’t shrink government, because they can’t even shrink their own egos.

They cosplay as patriots. They speak in polished soundbites about Jefferson and Madison. But in truth, they govern like leftists: more rules, more centralization, more loyalty tests, and zero courage to confront the insiders destroying our party from within.

The GA GOP sells power to the highest bidder. The GRA sells morality at a discount—and neither delivers.

False Heroes and Faux Grassroots

The Georgia Republican Assembly loves Ronald Reagan. And on the surface, that’s understandable. Reagan stood for liberty, limited government, and moral courage. But for the GRA, Reagan isn’t a guiding principle — he’s a convenient idol. A myth they wave like a flag to distract newcomers from the very real games being played behind the scenes.

They drop “grassroots” into every sentence like it’s punctuation. But the truth is, the GRA hasn’t operated like a grassroots movement in years. They’ve become insiders in disguise — veterans of procedural warfare who manipulate newcomers while pretending to be just like them.

It’s bait and switch. New members are sold on patriotism, morality, and restoring the Republic. But behind closed doors? They’re told not to “rock the boat.” They’re warned, subtly or directly, that asking the wrong questions or backing the wrong candidate will get them blacklisted.

They dangle Reagan like a carrot to keep you in line. But what they’re really building is a controlled ecosystem where no one rises without kissing the ring, where truth is tolerated only if it doesn’t embarrass leadership, and where the biggest sin is refusing to play along.

You can’t call yourself grassroots when you’re terrified of the grass growing in a direction you don’t control.

What Happens to the Honest Ones

I didn’t start out cynical. Like many others, I showed up to serve — not to scheme. I joined the fight because I believed in the Constitution, in conservative principles, and in the idea that the Republican Party was still the best hope for preserving American freedom.

But the moment I stopped clapping on cue, the knives came out.

I’ve been lied to behind closed doors, slandered in Signal chats, and cut out of meetings I was entitled to attend. I’ve watched peers publicly claim to support “unity” while privately conspiring to sabotage reformers. And I’ve seen people who did nothing wrong — except refuse to play dumb — get treated like enemies of the party.

This is how the modern Georgia GOP and GRA operate: they don’t beat you in debate — they erase you from the room.

The County GOP: A Circus of the Bitter and the Petty

If the GRA is a failed moral compass and the state party is a fortress of insiders, then the County GOP is something far worse: a retirement home turned Roman Colosseum, where blood sport replaces leadership and newcomers are either mocked, manipulated, or mauled.

These are folks who’ve been in the room for decades and still haven’t figured out how to win elections, register voters, or inspire anyone under 60. But they sure know how to yell.

Try showing up to help. Just once. Say something principled. Ask a challenging question. Mention you haven’t chosen a side yet. You’ll be met with eye-rolls, cold shoulders, or an ambush of passive-aggressive comments — if not an outright character assassination.

They behave like the worst parts of the Left: tribal, intolerant, obsessed with control, and allergic to accountability.

They Want You to Stay Home

Here’s the part no one says out loud: They don’t want you to show up. No, really.

They don’t want 1,300 Trump delegates flooding the room. They don’t want working parents asking questions. They don’t want everyday citizens realizing that they have the numbers — and the right — to take it back.

Every caucus where only a few hundred people trickle in is treated like a private party. They celebrate it. Because once that hurdle is cleared, they’re safe. Once they lock in their hand-picked delegates — often using personal data to sign up neighbors who aren’t even present — the rest is just theater.

It’s a system designed to look broken just enough that good people walk away, but not so broken that insiders lose control.

And then they have the nerve to shame everyday families for not “doing more.”

These microelites exist because you trusted them. You gave them your vote. You gave them your good faith. And they turned it into a closed loop of unearned power.

They are not the voice of the people. They are the product of your absence.

The State GOP: Where Ritual Replaces Results

If the county party is a circus, then the state party is a cathedral of delusion — complete with costumes, rehearsed chants, and leaders who confuse performance with purpose.

Try engaging for a year. Go to the meetings. Join the committees. Watch what happens.

You’ll see the slow, almost religious conversion into factions, into tribal loyalties, into whispered wars over titles and turf. Every last person, no matter how noble they begin, is either chewed up or co-opted.

Ask yourself: When was the last time either party made your life meaningfully better?

You’ve been gaslit into feeling a victory while living under the same weight of broken systems. Because the parties—both of them—have become shells.

Go to the Georgia State GOP Convention. Just once. Watch the grandstanding. The staged unity. The clapping on cue. It’s less like a political gathering and more like a worship service in which God is name-dropped, but nowhere to be found.

The Hollow Men at the Top

Just take a look at the chairman. Watch him long enough and you’ll see it: the performance, the choreography, the emotional cues rehearsed for maximum applause. It’s so regimented, so soullessly fake, that I sometimes wonder — half-joking, half not — if one day he’ll get caught mid-clap, his face will split open, and a demon will crawl out of his skin to accept the standing ovation. Honestly, it’d be more real than what we get now.

They’re not leading. They’re managing illusions. They’re auditioning for relevance while our country decays around them.

And Where Is Trump?

Where is he in all this?

Endorsing Josh McKoon.

The man who presides over a collapsing state party, where participation is a joke, internal corruption is normalized, and reformers are hunted like enemies.

What kind of nonsense is that?

We are watching Georgia turn into Michigan. We are watching Atlanta slide into Detroit. And the supposed standard-bearers of the populist movement are rubber-stamping the very swamp creatures building the machine that’s choking the base.

Endorsements like this aren’t just disappointing — they’re dangerous. Because they give legitimacy to the very structure that’s suffocating the MAGA movement from within.

If Trump wants Georgia, he’s going to have to wake up to what’s really happening here. Not what his consultants are telling him. Not what the local party bosses are whispering. But what the people are living, every day, under a broken party that protects its own and punishes its future.

The Attack Dogs

And then we have the two self-appointed “attack dogs” of Georgia GOP politics: Debbie Dooley and Bill Simon — two people who spend their time bullying reformers, torching good-faith conservatives, and carrying water for the very power structures they pretend to oppose.

They don’t hold office. They don’t build coalitions. They don’t solve problems. They exist to intimidate, smear, and sabotage — and they do it with a kind of reckless glee.

It’s hard enough standing up to corruption. It’s even harder when the loudest voices in the room are the Tiger King’s little sister and a Chinese knockoff version you order from AliExpress.

And yet, party leadership never reins them in. Because these aren’t outliers — they’re tools. Useful for attacking outsiders. Disposable when things get too messy. But always protected, as long as they bark in the right direction.

The Final Truth

The Georgia GOP is not the party of the people. The GRA is not the conscience of anything holy or noble. The GRA is the conscience of that decay — the quiet voice that excuses every betrayal, rationalizes every cowardly compromise, and asks you to smile while they crucify reformers.

But here’s the truth that scares them the most:
If the people they’ve excluded ever show up—truly show up—it’s over.

So no, I’m not writing this to make friends. I’m writing it because I still believe in something real — and I’m tired of watching fakes in patriot costumes destroy it.

If you’ve been on the outside looking in:
Good. Stay angry.
Get informed.
And when the time comes, don’t just vote — show up and take it back.

This story has expanded: When Accountability Becomes Betrayal.