Viral Over Vetted: The Georgia GOP’s Crisis of Discernment

How spectacle keeps outrunning scrutiny from party offices to Senate races

This is not an isolated scandal. It is the predictable result of a party that keeps rewarding flash over judgment.

Only months after being celebrated as the youngest-ever Black leader elected to a state GOP post, Ja’Quon Stembridge abruptly resigned as assistant secretary of the party. His departure followed the circulation of a series of confrontation videos from Street Sweeperz, a predator sting group based in Athens, Georgia. At the time of this writing, no charges have been filed. But the political damage is already done—and so is the evidence of systemic irresponsibility.

This did not happen in a vacuum. As long as the Republican Party continues to push “big-tent” rhetoric without serious vetting, it will continue. Platforms are being handed out faster than vetting can keep up. And when leadership is motivated more by optics than due diligence, the door is left wide open for grifters, opportunists, and those who should never be entrusted with power.

This is not simply about one young man. It is about a party culture that rewards image over integrity.

There is an uncomfortable truth the GOP refuses to confront: Republicans are often more concerned with not being seen as racist than with actually uprooting bad actors in their own ranks. The result is a political climate where representation is sometimes treated as a shield rather than a responsibility. When a young Black face appears eager to join the party, scrutiny softens. Celebration comes first. Questions come later—if at all.

Tokenization is not outreach. It is negligence dressed up as progress. And it creates the perfect conditions for people who want access without accountability to slip through the filter.

This pattern is not new. In my previous essay, Minstrelsy Over Substance: The GOP’s Black Voter Problem, I wrote about how the party routinely platforms Black conservatives for spectacle rather than for substance, especially when that spectacle involves attacking Black women for white applause. What we are seeing now follows the same logic. Viral over vetted. Optics over integrity.

Instead of cultivating serious Black leadership rooted in proven integrity, long-term trust, and real accountability, the party keeps chasing the headline: the youngest, the flashiest, the most unexpected. The result is predictable. When spectacle is rewarded, substance is expendable. And when substance is expendable, the public bears the risk.

And this failure of discernment is not confined to youth leadership posts. It now shadows the very top of the GOP’s statewide ticket-making operation. Mike Collins—one of the frontrunners in the Republican primary to challenge Senator Jon Ossoff—is currently under investigation following a referral to the House Ethics Committee. The committee has stressed that an inquiry does not itself establish wrongdoing. But once again, the party is left explaining why serious questions are emerging after a candidate has already been elevated, not before.

This is the same pattern I warned about in my earlier essay, Loyal to Trump or Loyal to Georgia?. Collins has built much of his public profile not on independent leadership for Georgia, but on provocation—race-baiting rhetoric, jokes about political violence, and the casual amplification of posts from antisemitic accounts. Most recently, in the wake of the Young Republicans’ group chat scandal, Collins responded by tweeting an image of the murdered Georgia nursing student Laken Riley with the caption, “I don’t care about some group chat.” A man who shrugs off bigotry using a murdered woman’s image is not showing moral seriousness. He is signaling that outrage management matters more than principle. Georgia deserves better than meme politics—and antics like that won’t unseat Ossoff in 2026.

That kind of politics rewards escalation over judgment. It favors shock over scrutiny. And it creates an environment where vetting is treated as secondary to spectacle.

The party has already paid the price for this approach. When Republicans last tried to unseat a Democratic senator, they ran Herschel Walker almost entirely on celebrity and name recognition. Substance was sacrificed for star power. Due diligence was treated as optional. The result was not just defeat—it was prolonged embarrassment, constant crisis management, and a race that never had to be lost as badly as it was.

Walker was not selected because he was the most capable candidate. He was selected because he was the most viral. This is how a party ends up repeatedly shocked by outcomes it engineered itself.

“Big-tent” politics without firm standards is not inclusion. It is a free-for-all. Outreach without discipline is not growth. It is recklessness. When the party’s primary concern is how diverse a press photo looks rather than who is being elevated and why, leadership forfeits the right to act surprised when disaster follows.

The GOP did not merely embarrass itself here. It failed to protect the public. It failed to protect young people. And it failed in the most basic responsibility of political leadership: do not elevate what you have not vetted.

Black Americans becoming disillusioned with the Democratic Party does not mean they are running into Republican arms. And it certainly does not mean the GOP gets to suspend its judgment in exchange for representation theater. This pattern only deepens skepticism among the very voters the party claims it wants to reach.

If Republicans are serious about growth instead of applause, they must stop drooling over Black faces for optics and start cultivating Black leadership with the same rigor they claim to value everywhere else. Character must matter more than shock value. Vetting must matter more than viral moments. And integrity must matter more than the press release.

Because when a party replaces discernment with desperation for diversity points, it doesn’t just look unserious. It becomes unserious.