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Originally published at Hank Sullivan.
The Georgia Republican Party has lost its way. I have been chronicling that loss since Governor Brian Kemp selected Kelly Loeffler to replace Johnny Isakson in the US Senate. That was in 2019, the day the Georgia Republican Party fracture began. In my article, “Remember Brian Kemp, You Work for Us,” I wrote:
“Two weeks ago, I called Brian Kemp Georgia’s “outstanding Governor.” And I really believed that. At that time, I was looking forward to enjoying Governor Kemp following through on all of the issues he campaigned last year. But now, unfortunately, two short weeks later, Kemp has lost my respect, and from what I’m seeing the respect of countless others who elected him, including President Trump. Kemp has lost so much respect in fact, that it is difficult for me right now to identify appropriate language to describe Georgia’s Governor. So for now, maybe I’ll just call him “Brian, who is Georgia’s Governor.”
That move by Kemp broke the Republican Party into two camps, one headed by Kemp, the other by Trump. Over time, that fracture only got worse. Even so, by itself, that event is not why the Republicans lost so overwhelmingly in this week’s midterms. The Loeffler appointment was simply a bellwether event, foretelling what was to come.
So let’s look at what really went wrong with Republican politics in Georgia, comprehensively, and see if there is anything to be learned. Here are my top eight reasons Republicans have been thrown out of power in Georgia:
During World War II, after D-Day and the liberation of Paris, Allied Supreme Commander Eisenhower was persuaded by his optimistic war counselors to initiate another D-Day type event using paratroopers to take the Bridge over the Rhine at Remagen before the Germans might blow it up. The exercise failed, and has been memorialized in books and film as “A Bridge Too Far.” Iran has apparently become Trump’s “bridge too far.”
Trump ran on a “no more wars” platform. And it wasn’t just that he sent B-1’s to create a 1000 foot deep crater in the ground hoping to destroy certain of Iran’s nuclear research facilities. No, amazingly, the President got away with that. But soon, and inexplicably, perhaps feeling invincible after the Venezuela operation, my theretofore favorite President was persuaded by Benjamin Netanyahoo and those who control the Isreali Prime Minister, to try an air invasion to topple the Iranian Government. History has demonstrated many times, however, that it is practically impossible to overthrow a nation such as Iran without boots on the ground, which if Trump attempted would have been an even larger political and military disaster.
And what is important to Americans is that Trump’s foray against Iran has caused economic upheaval here at home. Think of all the independent truck drivers out there who are now paying twice the cost of diesel than before the war. Those costs affect the prices of end products all throughout the economy. We can expect a large majority of truckers, formerly Republican voters, voted Democrat, hoping to influence the price of their largest direct cost downward. (I have news for them. The Dem’s don’t even want them driving diesel trucks.) Furthermore, the price of fuel is one factor causing the American economy to falter. The American people, not just Georgians, are feeling it in their pocketbooks and justifiably expressed their disapproval of Trump’s Iranian policy during the US midterms. Essentially, what we just witnessed this week was not an approval of Democrat policies across America, but the manifestation of those politically situated toward the center in the Republican electorate who are tired of being ignored, and who used their vote to “throw the bums out.”
Couple the faltering US economy (unless you listen to Fox News) with the over-the-top manner in which ICE has treated many illegals who are not violent criminals, and you have a recipe for a voter rebellion. Because of mass deportations, the Hispanic vote, Trump’s two years ago, turned away and voted Democrat. Even so, Trump Republicans could have prevailed in the midterms had Trump’s Iran war not been such an overwhelming backdrop affecting their voting decisions. It is clear that Americans support closing the border to illegal immigration. It is also clear that regardless of how otherwise peaceful immigrants may have found themselves in America, the American people do not support mass-deportation of peaceful people by and large.
Josh McKoon, elected party chair in 2022, has all but destroyed the Georgia Republican Party. The inner finances of the party remain hidden. The courts have allowed evidence in certain questionable party court cases be sealed. Rumors abound that the Georgia Republican Party, Inc. has simply become a money laundering operation.
Under McKoon, the democratic processes guaranteed under state election laws have been abandoned, as evidenced by last year’s Dalton Republican State Convention. Apparently, even God, Himself, was displeased, sending a tornado to rip the convention center doors off their hinges as the event broke up.
McKoon is a state employee, and owes his reported $242,759.54 salary, including travel expenses (as GOP Chair?) to his relationship with Governor Kemp. When Kemp is out of office, McKoon will be off the gravy train. He will need good luck to find a job, as he has destroyed everything he has come in contact with in his position as party chairman.
The resigning party chair is also formerly the leader of a social organization that posts pictures of children trapped in cages in its Facebook page, and has proven himself to be a sort of creep in the minds of many Republicans who do not want to be associated with such activities. The next regime who assumes control of the party should perform a full audit and air what is discovered, or live under the prevailing truth that many Georgia Republicans will never contribute to the party again.
[Interestingly, this afternoon I heard that McKoon may not resign after all, saying to someone close to him that he may stay because the party needs him during this time. I have news for the chairman. The only thing the Republican Party needs is for Josh McKoon to go as far away as possible from Georgia politics and never come back.]
Last week, Brant Frost IV received his sentence for operating a reported $250 million Ponzi scheme, victimizing untold numbers of individual private investors, some who had their life savings tied up in the operation. Recipients of Frost’s political gifts abound among Georgia Republican office holders and candidates. The people of Georgia were not amused. They used this opportunity to throw them all out perhaps expecting God to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Georgia Republican Party may never recover from the association it had with the Frost family.
And do not believe that the GRA will come to the Republican rescue. They can’t. Not only is the GRA tied up to its eyeballs with founding members Brant Frost (both IV and V), but Alex Johnson’s GRA has laughingly defined itself philosophically as the “conscience of the Republican Party.” Even if it worked as designed, for that very reason the GRA can only amount to an alter ego of the Georgia Republican Party. Should Johnson decide to run for chairman in both, doing so would effectively end the presumed separation between the organizations and thereby end the GRA, which needs to end anyway. That is because over time the GRA and GRP have become joined at the hip, the purpose of the former simply to catch, retrain and retain those who fall out and leave the latter, thus keeping conservative-minded individuals in the fold. That is the game being played here. As soon as Alex Johnson might decide to run for GRP chairman, he would effectively drive a stake in the heart of the alter ego GRA. Does the conscience of the Republican Party itself need a conscience? You see, it makes no sense. The voters recognize what I am saying and they do not recognize the GRA with a viable purpose. The GRA and its ties to Frost have helped to alienate voters from the Republican Party, rather than attract them to it.
There is nothing worse in politics than incumbent office-holder entrenchment. That is why we need term limits at every layer of elected government. Entrenchment begets hubris. Hubris energizes power cravings. Power cravings lead to ignoring the base. Ignoring the base leads to voter rebellion. Voter rebellion is what Georgia and the US as a whole just witnessed at its finest.
Here in Forsyth County, voters expressed themselves mightily, overwhelmingly approving a two-term limit for county commissioners, all of them Republicans, 92% to 8%. Term limits had to happen, and were brought about by the effects of political entrenchment among a ruling class of Republican commissioners the voters have grown to dislike immensely. Familiarity breeds disdain. As Forsyth County voters have become more familiar with the workings of their commissioners, disdain has been the natural result.
Each year, Republicans crow the distinction given it by Area Development Magazine that Georgia is its “Best State in Which to do Business.” 2026 is the 13th year in a row that Georgia has won that title. But what that really means is that under Republicans Georgia has become a state run by big business interests, entire industries receiving corporate welfare, huge tax breaks for operating in our midst, those entities wielding untold political power among elected officials desperately in search of political contributions.
Having assumed the personhood of a Georgia corporation itself, the Georgia Republican Party, Inc. is apparently no longer bound by election law under Title 21, but instead by corporate law under Title 14. That being the case, not only are its books effectively sealed under the protection of law, but its activities are not confined to elections. And because under IRS regulations, non-profit corporations’ political activities are not tax deductible, that corporate distinction places the Georgia Republican Party of Josh McKoon squarely under the potential eye of the IRS.
More money flows into the Georgia Republican Party, Inc. from fellow corporate entities, than from Republican Party members. Because that is true, the GRP, Inc. listens to corporations and their wishes, much more than regular Republicans. Whoever assumes control of the Georgia Republican Party, such as it is, will find him or herself sidelined conducting massive forensic audits and document examinations just to understand what that entity really is under law.
Republicans can take solace in this one. Twenty-three years ago, former Democrat Governor Zell Miller wrote a book entitled, “A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat.” Miller was writing about the demise of the party to which his family had been members for generations.
Since then, the Democrat Party has won three presidential elections (at least officially) and spent half of that time with majorities in congress, all that occurring after Zell Miller put a fork in the Democratic Party. So, I don’t care which party is in charge of what, the Democrats will screw up too, it’s inevitable, at which time an entire new group of faces will show up as Republicans to challenge the new status quo. What we have here is a sort of natural purging of bad politicians, this time Republicans. Incumbents can rarely be defeated in primaries. It takes the other party to do it. Just know that the world is not over because of the 2026 midterms. So, everyone, relax.
Recently, I told a high official in the Forsyth Republican Party that my main problems have not been with Democrats. The Democrats with whom I have honest disagreements have not been in power. My problems have with Republicans who have been in power, the kind who covertly run for office for their own gratification, public glorification, personal enrichment, and importantly, as part of a junta of similarly-minded politicians, in essence forming a society to promote their mutual personal interests, or “Club” if you will. What I describe has been the state of affairs in Forsyth County for several years. That Club, working together for its members own underlying purposes, is now on the way out. Most of it’s leaders either just lost elections, or now find themselves term-limited. In the long view, I see that as a good thing, the natural order being restored over time. I am OK with that. What should concern us all is to recognize when another such Club attempts to take over, at which time the process would simply repeat. While one rock & roller might sing, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” and another might croon, “That’s just the way it is.”
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