11 Jul Vetting Questionnaire – MAGA
Solicit 1 to 5 ratings from candidates for elective office
- Candidates for elected office will be asked to rank the answers for each topic in a 1 to 5 order, with 1 being their view of the most MAGA-aligned answer, and 5 being the least.
- A tally of their scores for their No. 1 and No. 5 answers will be made (for example, if a candidate rated as No. 1 the answer that the control group assigned a weighted average value of 7.2, the candidate will tally 7.2 for that topic…and all No. 1 answers on all topics will be similarly tallied. The same process will be followed for tallying the total score for the No. 5 answers).
- The candidate’s total score for No. 1 answers will be one useful indicator of how strongly the candidate ‘gets it’ as it relates to understanding and supporting the spirit of the MAGA agenda.
- The size of the gap between the candidate’s total score for No.1 answers and the total score for No. 5 answers will also measure how strongly the candidate gets it. The larger the gap, the greater the embrace of the MAGA agenda and the greater the rejection of that which dilutes or defiles it.
- See last page for MAGA control group scoring of each answer
Rank each answer from 1 to 5, with 1 being what you agree with as the MOST MAGA-aligned answer, and 5 being the least:
Stolen election –
Sure, there was evidence of irregularities in the November 3 election, but there’s always some, and Trump’s own AG said it wasn’t enough to change the outcome. So even though it bothers me, I think we have to move on and work to make sure future elections are more secure.
Rating: ______________
The 2020 election was obviously stolen; the five-state vote-counting shutdown on Election Night—when Trump was winning all five—followed by ridiculously implausible pro-Biden ballot dumps that turned all five to Biden, was all the evidence anyone needed to know the election was stolen. All that was left to do was thoroughly investigate so that the right people and companies were indicted for the right crimes, but our corrupt institutions failed us, and none actually investigated. This obvious injustice leaves MAGA agenda supporters angry and distrustful of our system. Justice requires that some court actually analyze the evidence of electronic election fraud.
Rating: ______________
We need to recognize how powerful the NYT and WaPo are when they set the narrative that ‘there was no evidence of fraud’. The American people believe them, and we need to work within that reality. The American people also believe the FBI and DOJ are honorable, and would have investigated if there was enough evidence of wrongdoing to justify investigation. We have no choice but to adjust to this reality, and try to fight back before the next election.
Rating: ______________
The 2020 election was so brazenly stolen…there’s no other issue more important to the survival of ‘America the free’ than doing everything possible to expose the fraud—even now—and everything possible to make sure it never happens again. I am fed up with Republican politicians who ignore it, deny it or in some cases, like McConnell, claim Biden won going away. I can barely stand to associate with the Republican Party because of their unspeakable cowardice in confronting this fraud.
Rating: ______________
I just haven’t seen anything that proves there was enough fraud to overturn the results. We have to understand—lots of Americans hated Donald Trump. Nikki Haley was right about the fact that we listened to Trump more than we should have. But as to the election, what is over is over, and there is no point in looking back and ruminating over what might have been or should have been. We need to sell our message more effectively to more people; we need to register new voters, and we need to trust that our elections will reward our efforts.
Rating: ______________
Rank each answer from 1 to 5, with 1 being what you agree with as the MOST MAGA-aligned answer, and 5 being the least:
Energy policy and climate change
I like energy as much as the next person, but we’ve got to realize we’re going to have to break our reliance on fossil fuel eventually, so while I understand that the oil & gas industry employs a lot of people, still, we need to be responsible and develop new sources of energy, and encourage oil & gas workers to get retraining for other jobs.
Rating: ______________
I’m not a climate scientist, so I have to rely on others to make these judgements. Seems to me there are enough scientists concerned about this that we need to be cautious and careful, and err on the side of cutting our carbon emissions as fast as we reasonably can, while not being too abrupt in shutting down the fossil fuel industry.
Rating: ______________
Climate change alarmism is like every other alarmism—it is stoked and flaunted by the left to make sure no crisis goes to waste. It becomes a tool to justify re-engineering American society, destroying freedoms, and placing government power in the hands of unelected ‘experts’ who tell everyone else what to do. We need to let free people and free markets absorb data and analysis and reports, and then make adjustments as and when necessary. We trust free people to be responsible; we do not want the government dictating what people can and can’t do in response to any claimed crisis.
Rating: ______________
We need fossil fuels, and we need more of them. Texas’ winter illustrated the unreliability of wind and solar—wind turbines froze up and were useless when most needed; and solar never works when the sun isn’t shining, and still has very limited capacity for storing the electricity that is generated. The ‘science’ of climate change is a long way from settled, and so-called ‘experts’ through the centuries have been claiming the climate is going to put an end to the human race, whether by cooling or warming. And we’re still here. Common sense in the respectful support of clean air and water is enough for sound environmental policy.
Rating: ______________
I’m so sick of climate change alarmism. It’s overblown; it’s always coming from people with an agenda to control everyone and everything. When there’s never any expression of confidence in the ability of free people in free markets to adapt and adjust, but only a determination to create a government entity to command and control all activity that may contribute to some undesirable aspect of climate, then I am convinced that it is NOT science that is driving anything. It’s just a political agenda, with no concrete scientific analysis backing up its conclusions and recommendations. We need to stop being paralyzed by the propaganda.
Rating: ______________
Rank each answer from 1 to 5, with 1 being what you agree with as the MOST MAGA-aligned answer, and 5 being the least:
Immigration policy
America is a nation of immigrants; we want a culture that embraces all immigrants. We need to be careful about walls and deportations and harsh rhetoric; these can harm our reputation in the world. We should have rules and regulations to control immigration, but we should focus on setting a friendly and welcoming tone in all that we do.
Rating: ______________
Not enough Americans understand America; they don’t truly appreciate the uniqueness of the Constitution and how difficult it is to maintain individual freedom as the cornerstone of our society. The last thing we need is to open the borders to people potentially even more ignorant of what it means to be an American citizen. That’s why immigration policy must be built, first and foremost, around people who want to move to America and become Americans—because of their respect for and willingness to honor the US Constitution. Applying this as the filter for accepting immigrants isn’t cruel or bigoted; it is enlightened and helps preserve and perpetuate what makes America great.
Rating: ______________
I’m fed up with all the virtue-signaling over America’s treatment of immigrants. America’s first and foremost obligation is our treatment of Americans. And the better we treat Americans—by promoting the blessings of freedom and free markets and equal opportunity for all—the more we will attract immigrants for the right reasons. We want American ideas to be embraced in other countries so that fewer people will want to leave their own countries and will want to bring freedom and progress to their own. But for those who have no option but to leave and try to come to America, we want to welcome them with open arms so long as they embrace America’s Constitution and ideals as their own.
Rating: ______________
Biden’s release of 25K+ of immigrants into Texas and California, with no covid testing, while simultaneously proposing to block Americans from traveling to Florida (because of Florida’s relatively open economy) is a simple example of the grotesquely infuriating hypocrisy and pure partisan politics that shapes left-wing immigration policy. It’s nonsensical, except as a means of attempting to create what the left believes will be a reliably left-wing voting block.
Rating: ______________
America has had times in its history when NO immigrants were allowed for a period of time. The pauses were due to a belief that the country needed time to assimilate immigrants already here, before opening up to receive more. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this sentiment; it is NOT anti-American or even anti-immigrant. It simply assures Americans that citizens come first, and is further based on the belief that if we make America great for Americans, we’ll attract the best type of immigrant, who wants a better life in America because s/he understands ever more clearly WHY lift is better in America.
Rating: ______________
Rank each answer from 1 to 5, with 1 being what you agree with as the MOST MAGA-aligned answer, and 5 being the least:
China relations
China has a huge population and is a huge source of inexpensive products and services, and we would be foolish to pretend they don’t exist or that we can have a vibrant economy without active trade with China. So we need to stay engaged with them, and be more careful about allowing them to steal our intellectual property.
Rating: ______________
Forget geography and forget ethnicity. Communism is anti-American. It is anti-freedom. Nixon and Kissinger started us down this path of believing that lifting up China by shipping our manufacturing capabilities to them would also liberalize their political system, and everyone would gravitate toward a more western style of democracy and civil society. We now KNOW this hope is unjustified. Communism is communism, and leads to nothing but tyranny unless and until it collapses of its own moral bankruptcy. So we ought to do everything we can to expose that moral bankruptcy and hasten it, and do nothing to prop it up and prolong it. If we have to end trade with China, it would be ok with me.
Rating: ______________
The CCP is not a benevolent force; it desires the destruction of the United States of America. The vast majority of the Chinese people are not members of the CCP, and do not necessarily embrace the policies or objectives of the CCP—but they have no choice but to follow along or else face imprisonment or execution. America should cut way back on all trade with China, ending any form of dependency on Chinese suppliers in any area of commerce. The CCP will not become less aggressive unless and until made to do so by economic, military and political pressure.
Rating: ______________
The CCP cannot sustain itself if enough of the Chinese economy is integrated with the West. The reality of international commerce is such that contracts must be adhered to or nothing can get done, and developing the habit of adhering to contracts is essentially the same as adhering to the rule of law which keeps civilization functioning in a civilized way. So America needs to remain an active trading partner with China, and work tirelessly to westernize Chinese behavior. The CCP will gradually fade out.
Rating: ______________
It is beyond me as to why we ever trust the truthfulness of ANYTHING the Chinese Communist leaders say. They lie about their economy and rates of growth; they lie about the use of forced labor; they lie about organ harvesting and forced sterilization; they lie because they can, because there is no one to stop them or call them out. And they virtually own and control the WHO, which makes every pronouncement by WHO presumptively false or misleading. We are forever assuming the CCP abides by the same ethical standards of the west, but they don’t, and never will. We shouldn’t make any part of American trade or covid policy around what China claims to be true or untrue. We have to investigate and decide for ourselves.
Rating: ______________
Rank each answer from 1 to 5, with 1 being what you agree with as the MOST MAGA-aligned answer, and 5 being the least:
Covid policy
Americans have gotten sick and hundreds of thousands of them have died of covid. This is no place for politics. We have to listen to what the scientists say, and we need to follow their advice. That’s not un-American; it’s just common sense. Hardship happens, and we just have to deal with it.
Rating: ______________
I understand people have been stressed out, and there is plenty of room for second-guessing different decisions along the way. But I think for the most part, authorities were acting in good faith to do their best under difficult circumstances. I think that applies to the job Anthony Fauci has done.
Rating: ______________
Nothing has smelled right about the covid pandemic from the beginning. Two weeks to flatten the curve turned into a year of lockdowns and social distancing and mask mandates, and no study has ever shown that any of this was efficacious. And at the same time, government authorities specifically suppressed many efficacious treatments such as HCQ and ivormectin, while demanding the wait for, and then mass introduction of vaccines. We need a vast overhaul in how we handle so-called pandemics, starting with who and how they are officially proclaimed, and then who and how long anyone or any group is allowed to take away American freedoms without following constitutional legislative processes.
Rating: ______________
It’s possible we’re entering an era of pandemics, so whether we are conservative or liberal, we need to pay attention to the scientists. Freedom is important, but it’s of no use if we’re all dead. So yes, the covid-19 pandemic wasn’t handled perfectly, but it had to be handled, and our institutions did the best they could. There’s just no reason to politicize the need to protect the health of the American people.
Rating: ______________
We have been dehumanized, prevented from being the social creatures that we are, and without anything close to ‘science’ to justify it. This is evil, to the core. We must restore a core confidence in our trust in free American people to do the right thing on their own, with government supplying information but not ordering behavior. After the ‘two weeks to flatten the curve’—a year’s worth of lockdowns are simple tyranny, and no freedom-loving American elected official should allow lockdowns to go without severe questioning and dispute and debate and determination to look for the least-intrusive ways of dealing with it.
Rating: ______________
Rank each answer from 1 to 5, with 1 being what you agree with as the MOST MAGA-aligned answer, and 5 being the least:
Race relations
America is NOT a racist country in 2021. The BLM noise, including the theme of ‘defunding the police’, is contrived by those seeking to destroy our country. Racism has long been seen by communists and other leftists as a wedge issue by which to divide Americans, and we need to reject it. A strong America First economy helps ALL Americans, and that’s what we need to strive for. We can always improve our practice of the Golden Rule—and the Golden Rule is enough to guide our racial policies. There is no place for discrimination on the basis of race, but we do believe in discrimination on the basis of competence, willingness to work hard, and ability to be part of a team.
Rating: ______________
Martin Luther King had it right long ago: we want to strive for a society where we are judged by the content of our character, and not by the color of our skin. Diversity programs that are based on the color of our skin or other physical characteristics are not consistent with Dr. King’s philosophy, and send us backward in race relations, not forward. We want to abolish both affirmative action and white privilege; we want as much as possible to treat each other with respect and dignity, and let our individual strengths and weaknesses determine our path forward, not our identity as part of a group.
Rating: ______________
Racism is a scar on our country’s history, and we can’t pretend it isn’t. White people can’t understand what it is like to be harassed by the police for being black. We conservatives have to be honest enough to accept these realities, and then lead the way forward with more compassionate and supportive attitudes. We may need to abide by quotas in hiring people of color, at least for awhile, as we correct for the injustices of the past. We need to be open to at least some discussion of reparations, because there is value to our society when we have a collective sense of righting past wrongs.
Rating: ______________
Police need better training. We may want to believe there’s only a few bad apples, but the record of George Floyd and Jacob Blake and Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin tell us it’s worse than that. Defunding the police is not the answer, but the status quo is not the answer either. We need more police chiefs of color; we need more sensitivity training; we need to use expert consultants to help us weed out the raft of bad apples that are in every major police department.
Rating: ______________
We need to give broader voice and more visibility to conservative black and brown Americans. People like Candace Owens, Allen West, Burgess Owens, Larry Elder, Steve Cortes. They demonstrate by their lives that what makes America great is not groups and group identities, but individuals and individual excellence achieved through hard work, persistence, and upright character. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the rights of individuals, not groups, and that’s how we ought to think of them. We’re part of one human race, and stop dividing ourselves by skin color.
Rating: ______________
MAGA Control Group average score for answers to questionnaire
| ? | Stolen Election | Energy Policy/Climate Change | Immigration Policy | China Relations | Covid Policy | Race Relations |
| 1 | 1.11 | 1.7 | 2.1 | 3.0 | 1.4 | 9.9 |
| 2 | 10 | 1.1 | 9.8 | 9.3 | 0.9 | 10 |
| 3 | 3.0 | 9.9 | 9.3 | 10 | 9.9 | 2.0 |
| 4 | 9.8 | 9.8 | 9.9 | 1.4 | 1.6 | 2.2 |
| 5 | 1.3 | 9.8 | 9.6 | 10 | 9.9 | 10 |