Trump is the Culmination of Ayn Rand's Penchant for Selfishness
by John Lawrence, November 27, 2018
Trump's egotism and narcissim, verging on solipsism, come right out of an Ayn Rand novel. In addition to writing The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand wrote The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She championed the totally selfish person who only looked out for himself or herself. She had a cult following including Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman under Ronald Reagan who was also a fan of Rand's. Trump is the archtypical Rand hero: the builder (real estate), the man who takes want he wants, ("you can grab them by the pussy if you're a star"). House Speaker Paul Ryan is also a big fan.
Wikipedia reports:
The Randian hero is a ubiquitous figure in the fiction of 20th-century novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, most famously in the figures of The Fountainhead's Howard Roark and Atlas Shrugged's John Galt. Rand's self-declared purpose in writing fiction was to project an "ideal man"—a man who perseveres to achieve his values, even when his ability and independence leads to conflict with others.
Ayn Rand eschewed Christianity, a religion that emphasized responsibility to others especially the poor. Is it any wonder that contemporary America is characterized by selfish, narcissistic people who elected one like themselves President? Is it any wonder that they don't give a hoot about the fate of the earth in 2100. It is almost risible that the Federal government released a report supposedly alarming people about what is going to happen in 2100 due to global warming. Most Americans don't give a shit about 2100 when they'll all be dead. They want it all, and they want it now. They don't want to sacrifice their pickups and sports cars for a lousy Tesla.
Trump wants more industry - smokestack industry. The more smokestacks and car exhaust the better. As he points out, China has a worse air quality problem from car exhaust than does the US. Ronald Reagan sealed the deal to end the influence of the New Left that flourished throughout the sixties and seventies that emphasized economic democracy, the same values Bernie Sanders espouses. When Reagan was elected in 1980 (he brought Greenspan in in 1987), he dedicated himself to championing the rich and putting down poor hippies. In true Randian hero style, he told people it was alright to be selfish. In 1992, then-Governor Clinton repeatedly denounced “The Reagan-Bush years” for ushering “in a gilded age of greed, selfishness, irresponsibility, excess, and neglect.”
The Nation reported:
Yet During his two terms in the White House (1981–89), Reagan presided over a widening gap between the rich and everyone else, declining wages and living standards for working families, an assault on labor unions as a vehicle to lift Americans into the middle class, a dramatic increase in poverty and homelessness, and the consolidation and deregulation of the financial industry that led to the current mortgage meltdown, foreclosure epidemic and lingering recession.
These trends were not caused by inevitable social and economic forces. They resulted from Reagan’s policy and political choices based on an underlying “you’re on your own” ideology.
After 9/11 George Bush just told people to "go out and shop." In other words indulge yourself, be selfish, don't think about others. The Ayn Rand transformation of American society more or less started by Reagan has seen its culmination in Donald Trump, the ultimate Randian hero. Along the way a huge and growing underclass of homeless people has been created. Denizens of Christianity, ever willing to twist Jesus' teachings to include their own selfishness, have embraced the ultimate anti-Christian hero.
Here's another article on how Ayn Rand helped turn the US into a selfish and greedy nation.
