GRA Derangement Syndrome, Part I: They Said Goodbye. The GRA Kept Growing.
How a coordinated resignation campaign tried to manufacture the collapse of the Georgia Republican Assembly, and why the organization emerged stronger. This is Part One of a three-part series....
This is Part One of a three-part series examining the attacks against the Georgia Republican Assembly, the collapse of establishment “unity,” and which organizations are actually working to elect Republicans and enact Republican principles.
For years, critics have accused the Georgia Republican Assembly (GRA) of creating division within the Republican Party.
The facts increasingly demonstrate the opposite.
The Georgia Republican Assembly consists of Republicans organizing other Republicans. Its members identify and endorse principled candidates in Republican primaries, encourage conservatives to participate in county and state Republican Party organizations, help elect principled Republicans to party office, and support Republican nominees in general elections.
Readers unfamiliar with the organization can begin with the GRA’s Principles and Goals, the video “The GRA on a Mission”, the official history “12 Years of Progress”, and my earlier article “Who’s Afraid of the GRA?”. The GRA grew from a small state chapter organized in 2013 into an organization with more than 1,000 members.
The GRA’s philosophy is straightforward:
Make sure only people who will enact the Republican platform are on the Republican primary ballot.
Fight hard in the primary.
Build the Republican Party from the precinct level up.
Hold Republican politicians accountable to Republican principles.
Support Republican nominees in November.
That is not division.
That is party building.
What Is GRA Derangement Syndrome?
GRA Derangement Syndrome is the condition in which opposition to the Georgia Republican Assembly becomes more important than defeating Democrats, electing Republicans, respecting grassroots members, or advancing the Republican Platform.
It causes people who constantly preach “unity” to encourage Republicans to abandon a Republican organization.
It causes people who claim to support grassroots participation to attack an organization controlled through votes of its members.
It causes people who complain that the GRA is divisive to organize campaigns intended to weaken it.
And, as Part Two will demonstrate, it eventually causes some of those same people to refuse to support, or even actively campaign against, Republican nominees.
The 2025 “Goodbye GRA” campaign was perhaps the clearest early outbreak.
The Coordinated “Goodbye GRA” Campaign
The “Goodbye GRA” effort last year was not merely a collection of people independently deciding not to renew their memberships.
It was a coordinated and branded campaign.
Its organizers created a separate “Goodbye GRA” Mailchimp identity, circulated a collective resignation letter, published a list of names (some who were not even members), and included an “Add Your Name” button inviting additional people to join the effort.
Readers can examine the old campaign’s documents directly:
Read the original “Our Resignation” email.
Read the follow-up “Goodbye GRA” email.
The original letter (which, ironically, many of the people who “signed” the resignation letter claimed they did not see ahead of time or agree with) accused GRA Chairman Alex Johnson and GRA President Nathaniel Darnell of abandoning the organization’s mission. It claimed that the GRA was being consumed by internal conflict and declared that the signatories were resigning.
But the document went beyond announcing individual decisions. It published a list, invited additional signatures, and attempted to create the public impression of accelerating organizational collapse.
The list included Katie Frost, several members of the Frost family, former GRA officers, party officials, and others associated with the tiny faction involved in the underlying controversy.
The inclusion of Katie Frost and several relatives does not prove that every listed person resigned for precisely the same reason. But the timing, composition of the list, and contemporaneous responses provide substantial evidence that Frost’s removal from the GRA for attacking GRA candidates from the stage at the last convention was the catalyst around which the campaign was organized.
The Competing Account
Kylie Jane Kremer publicly offered a competing account.
Kremer said Frost had been removed from GRA leadership and membership because of alleged conduct rather than because of an ideological disagreement. Kremer also alleged that an email list had been used without authorization and accused the organizers of attempting to transform an internal disciplinary dispute into a political martyrdom narrative.
Readers can examine Kremer’s response here:
Kylie Jane Kremer’s response—X Link.
Kylie Jane Kremer’s response—Page 1 of Letter Attached to X / Page 2 of Letter Attached to X.
Kremer’s statements are her account and opinions of the controversy, not an independent adjudication of every underlying allegation. But they establish that the resignation campaign’s version of events was contested from the beginning.
What cannot reasonably be disputed is the campaign’s structure: it was organized, branded, distributed, publicized, and designed to recruit additional departures.
The Most Important Contrast
The “Goodbye GRA” campaign’s answer to disagreement was:
Leave the GRA.
That is worth comparing with the GRA’s consistent message to Republicans who are unhappy with the Georgia Republican Party.
The GRA does not say, “Goodbye GOP.”
It tells Republicans to join their county parties, attend precinct caucuses, become delegates, learn the rules, run for party office, persuade their fellow Republicans, and improve the Party from within.
After the 2025 GAGOP convention, my message was not to abandon the Party. It was “Don’t Quit! Fix the Bad From the GAGOP Convention!”.
One side responds to disagreement by building membership and persuading voters.
The other organized a departure campaign because it lost an internal struggle.
Which approach is actually unifying?
Dooley Promotes the Spectacle
Debbie Dooley used her email list to amplify “Goodbye GRA,” declaring (falsely) in capital letters that more than 150 people had supposedly walked away from the organization.
Her email did not merely report that some people had resigned. It linked to the campaign, republished its allegations, repeated its self-reported resignation totals, promoted favorable press coverage (by leftists), and encouraged readers to falsely view the episode as the collapse of the GRA.
Readers can examine her message directly:
Read Debbie Dooley’s promotional email.
The email repeated the campaign’s misleading claim that the departures represented one-third of the GRA Executive Committee, half of the GRA members serving on the GAGOP Executive Committee, and half of the organization’s chapter presidents. Those figures were claims by the campaign and its promoters, not accurate information tied to the actual membership numbers.
The point is not that Dooley is an especially significant statewide figure: she’s not, and simply uses the “Tea Party” name for her own interests. She is relevant because she promoted this particular campaign and represents its mindset: turn an internal political disappointment into a personal crusade, exaggerate its statewide importance, and try to weaken a Republican organization whose members refused to follow one faction that treated the grassroots badly.
The more useful question is what happened after the predictions and celebrations.
Did the GRA disappear?
No.
Josh McKoon Joins the Departure Theater
Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon1 later announced his own departure from the GRA.
Greg Bluestein reported that McKoon said he could not remain associated with an organization supposedly considering civil action against the Georgia Republican Party. The contemporaneous post can be reviewed here.
That justification rested on a disputed premise.
The GRA stated that it had never threatened, considered, or authorized a lawsuit against the Georgia Republican Party. GRA leaders had simply warned that if party leadership ignored the state convention’s Raffensperger resolution, one or more of the convention delegates might independently seek to enforce it.
That was not a GRA lawsuit threat.
It was a prediction about the consequences of ignoring the GAGOP’s own delegates/members in order to make a politician, Brad Raffensperger, happy.
As Part Three will explain, the prediction eventually came true: individual delegates, not the GRA as an organization, filed suit after the Party allowed Brad Raffensperger to qualify despite the convention resolution.2
McKoon’s public departure nevertheless became part of the larger narrative that the GRA was disintegrating.
It did not disintegrate.3
The GRA Is Part of a National Movement
The Georgia Republican Assembly is not an isolated organization built around a few Georgia personalities.
It is the Georgia state chapter of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, or NFRA.
Representatives from 18 states formally organized the NFRA in 1997. Republican Assemblies have since been chartered or organized in more than 40 states. The NFRA describes its objective as reclaiming, reforming, and restoring the Republican Party, not abandoning it for a third party.
Georgia members occupy a number of substantial national leadership positions, as listed on the NFRA Board of Directors page.
That is a revealing result for an organization whose critics announced was about to disappear.
The GRA continued working in Georgia while its members helped lead a Republican organization operating nationally.
They Said Goodbye. The GRA Kept Working.
The “Goodbye GRA” campaign attempted to present departures as proof that the organization had been mortally wounded.
Instead, the GRA continued:
Organizing Republicans.
Training activists.
Chartering and supporting chapters.
Making endorsements through votes of its members.4
Working inside the Republican Party.
Holding elected officials accountable.
Encouraging conservatives to become delegates and party officers.
Supporting Republican nominees in general elections.
The campaign therefore did not prove that the GRA had lost its purpose.
It demonstrated why the GRA is needed.
Georgia Republicans need an organization that responds to disagreement by increasing participation rather than encouraging withdrawal. They need an organization that gives members votes and a voice rather than asking them to follow self-appointed and emotionally reactive personalities. They need an organization that strengthens the Republican Party without surrendering the principles that give the Party a reason to exist.
The cure for GRA Derangement Syndrome is not walking away.
It is involvement.
Join your county Republican Party.
Become a delegate.
Run for party office.
Learn the rules.
Persuade your fellow Republicans.
And join the Georgia Republican Assembly.
Next: [GRA Derangement Syndrome, Part II: “Team Ossoff” and the Unity Fraud]
McKoon was endorsed by the GRA for Chairman in 2023 and the GRA votes and endorsement were critical to him getting elected. In 2025, the GRA did not endorse either candidate in the horribly toxic and divisive Chairman’s race.
And if the GAGOP decides to waste money fighting its own members instead of simply admitting it did wrong and won’t do it again, that obviously draws resources away from getting Republicans elected in November.
Much of the organized campaign against the GRA appeared to disintegrate when the story broke that Brant Frost IV was allegedly involved in a ponzi scheme and targeted by the SEC, which was only days after McKoon’s resignation.
Reminder: please vote for all Republicans in November, but especially GRA Endorsed candidates Mike Collins and Greg Dolezal, who were endorsed at this convention.