The New Age Of Ayn Rand: How She Won Over Trump And Silicon Valley

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 4-11-2017 | Jonathan Freedland

[blam]

Her novel The Fountainhead is one of the few works of fiction that Donald Trump likes and she has long been the darling of the US right. But only now do her devotees hold sway around the world

As they plough through their GCSE revision, UK students planning to take politics A-level in the autumn can comfort themselves with this thought: come September, they will be studying one thinker who does not belong in the dusty archives of ancient political theory but is achingly on trend. For the curriculum includes a new addition: the work of Ayn Rand.

It is a timely decision because Rand, who died in 1982 and was alternately ridiculed and revered throughout her lifetime, is having a moment. Long the poster girl of a particularly hardcore brand of free-market fundamentalism – the advocate of a philosophy she called “the virtue of selfishness” – Rand has always had acolytes in the conservative political classes. The Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, is so committed a Randian, he was famous for giving every new member of his staff a copy of Rand’s gargantuan novel, Atlas Shrugged (along with Freidrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom). The story, oft-repeated, that his colleague in the US Senate, Rand Paul, owes his first name to his father Ron’s adulation of Ayn (it rhymes with “mine”) turns out to be apocryphal, but Paul describes himself as a fan all the same.

Not to be left out, Britain’s small-staters have devised their own ways of worshipping at the shrine of Ayn. Communities secretary Sajid Javid reads the courtroom scene in Rand’s The Fountainhead twice a year and has done so throughout his adult life.

(snip)

[blam]

I read Atlas Shrugged while living in New Orleans in 1965. It is still one of the most influencial books in my life.

I began my career in chip-making in San Jose in 1967.

Another book you should read is Witness by Whittaker Chambers.
(Nothing to do with Ayn Rand)

[Daveinyork]

I’d like to know where devotees of Ayn Rand hold sway. I can’t think of any.

[bigbob]

Donald Trump is Hank Reardon.

Who is John Galt?

[sparklite2]

Devotees seem to be mostly scorned in our society. Her obsession with individual autonomy rankles the statists and religionists who, for their variously different reasons, feel destined to tell other people how to live.

It’s encouraging that her work is at least open to being a subject for study in the UK, but the brains of American snowflakes are conditioned to flee any such assertions of owning oneself.

[Hurricane Andrew]

Surely you jest. More likely Wesley Mouch...

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Interesting combination of books: Atlas Shrugged and Witness.

I too was a big fan of both books, but the following review got me rethinking my fling with Ayn...

Whittaker Chamber's Review of Atlas Shrugged

[Mr. Jeeves]

Paul Ryan, is so committed a Randian...

Could have fooled me.

[Art in Idaho]

From the article: "Her novel The Fountainhead is one of the few works of fiction that Donald Trump likes and she has long been the darling of the US right. But only now do her devotees hold sway around the world."

I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged during summers in college. Had a profound effect on me. Amazing reads.

When we were at Epcot, found this on the wall of the American Exhibit, "The American Adventure.":

Another Ayn Rand quote:

I've always had this vision of someone like Trump running for President. Someone like Hank Reardon or Howard Roark. Then I would lapse in despair thinking they would never run for office. Then I would rebound and say, "But if someone is going to really make change in our Federal government, really confront the fraud, waste, abuse and the administrative state, it would have to be someone like Reardon or Roark." Voila', here we are. .

The takers, elites and administrative state will do everything in their power to fight him, as we are witnessing daily.

President Trump needs our daily support and prayers. Fight on!

[stylin19a]

at least you could ping him

[Ceebass]

Donald Trump is Hank Reardon.

Who is John Galt?
////

More like he’s Howard Roark

There is no John Galt

[Pirate Ragnar]

“I too was a big fan of both books, but the following review got me rethinking my fling with Ayn...

Whittaker Chamber’s Review of Atlas Shrugged “

It got me questioning Whittaker’s motives.

[DIRTYSECRET]

That’s easy. John Galt is Bannon and guess who Kelly Anne is?

[whodathunkit]

Link already posted earlier.

[Lou L]

I've always had this vision of someone like Trump running for President. Someone like Hank Reardon or Howard Roark.

Honestly, I don't think Trump is like either of those characters; he's President because he wants to make America back into the image it once was...truly great. Roark and Reardon would be hands-off as President. The only "programs" they would advocate for is freedom. They'd delegate most of the work, and probably run a business on the side. They might advocate for a top-notch military, but it would be very lean, very efficient.

[To Hell With Poverty]

Funny. Speaking of extremes - the caricatures of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, creation and destruction - can you think of a better contrast than Trump vs Soros?

Maybe Chambers thought her work was silly because reality had not yet fully caught up with it!

[Art in Idaho]

Interesting take. Either way, Reardan or Roark would totally gut the administrative/regulatory/excessive taxation state and would bolster the military. Trump is a good delegater so he's about as close as we are going to get. : )

The thought of him going full bore like he's going now for eight years is almost too much winning to fathom. I hope he stays safe, healthy and truly can MAGA. There's so much to work on. I want our country back and want a new culture and a comeback for basic religious principles/ethics/morality.

[Uncle Miltie]

George Orwell:
Homage to Catalonia
1984
Animal Farm

Svetlana Alexievich:
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

Milton Friedman:
Free to Choose

[Uncle Miltie]

Dagny.

[blam]

"Whittaker Chamber's Review of Atlas Shrugged "

I get a blank page when I click on that.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Try this...

Big Sister