More and more commentators are concluding that Donald Trump’s real goal, now that he has ‘won’ the US presidency, is to create a society, and a capitalist economy, based on the extreme libertarian views of the Russian novelist Ayn Rand – an economy that will be red in tooth and claw that doubtless will be eagerly imitated in Europe.
The fact that he has filled his cabinet with multi-billionaires who could have stepped out of the pages of Rand’s homage to capitalist leader-heroes, ‘Atlas Shrugged’, is just one pointer in that direction. Others are the plans for corporate tax cuts, the scrapping or privatising of government health schemes like Medicare and Medicaid, and a shredding of government regulations that he promises.
In that context, it is worth revisiting a celebrated interview Rand gave to Mike Wallace of CBS back in 1959. Note how Wallace regards Rand’s views as so far out of kilter with American society even back then, that they would be rejected by most.
How far things have changed, and how much worse they are likely to get, a path blazed by Reagan, Thatcher, Clinton and Blair leading to, of all people, Donald Trump.
All down to this evil woman who personifies the selfish worst in humanity (in her old age however, her libertarianism didn’t stop her from seeking treatment under Medicare, a government run programme!)
The Broken Elbow 