Robert Reich attributes a long list of current social ills to Rand’s influence over Donald Trump, political conservatives, and the culture at large. But his argument depends on distorting Rand’s actual views and exaggerating her cultural influence.
This is the audio version of Onkar Ghate’s November 6, 2017, post, “The Anti-Intellectuality of Donald Trump: Why Ayn Rand Would Have Despised a President Trump.”
No one can speak for the dead. But as an expert on Ayn Rand’s philosophy, I’m often asked what Rand would have thought of President Trump, especially now, on the one-year anniversary of his election and in light of stories in the Washington Post and elsewhere trying to link Trump to Rand.
I applaud Will Wilkinson’s essay at Vox.com criticizing the Trump administration’s view of the jihadist threat, but I can offer only one cheer, not three. Wilkinson tries to put the threat in perspective, and although he makes some important points, he exhibits a mile-wide blind spot. Thus, in his own way, Wilkinson fails to understand the Islamist menace, what enables it, and the urgent necessity of confronting it.
Here’s a postscript to my new piece at The Hill today, where I argue that U.S. policy toward Egypt needs to be put on an honest footing. Instead of playing down its authoritarianism, we need confront Egypt about its violation of individual rights.
A couple of weeks ago, ARI executive chairman Yaron Brook was interviewed on Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal on the merits of “Trumpian Nationalism.”
Will Trump’s immigration ban protect us from Islamic totalitarianism? Is it based on facts or on irrational fears? Should we vet immigrants? In this episode of The Yaron Brook Show, Brook offers an objective analysis of Trump’s executive order on immigration.
