Ayn Rand, Donald Trump and the 1972 Presidential Election

Ayn Rand wrote an insightful series of articles on the 1972 presidential election and its result. These articles were published in her periodical The Ayn Rand Letter. In order of publication, these articles are "The Dead End," "A Preview," "A Nation's Unity" and "The American Spirit." To my knowledge, none of these articles have been anthologized in the several posthumously published collections of Rand's articles. 

Howard Trump Acting on his own Judgement

It is a shame that these articles are not readily available. The Ayn Rand Letter is not cheap and is generally only purchased by serious students of Rand's thought. More casual or impecunious readers are missing out on a treasure trove of some of her best cultural and social analysis. The above listed articles are excellent examples of why the Ayn Rand Institute needs to get its act together and make all of Rand's work much more accessible to readers, students and researchers. 

No short summation will do justice to Ayn Rand's articles on the 1972 election. She did emphatically state her support for the election of Richard Nixon. She did so not because of any special regard for the "pragmatic" (read, unprincipled) Nixon, but because George McGovern was so odious. Besides discussing the dishonest tactics used by the McGovernites to get their candidate nominated at the Democratic convention, Rand recognizes that a historic switch had taken place within the party: 

The real turning point came when the welfare statists switched from economics to physiology: they began to seek a new power base in deliberately fostered racism, the racism of minority groups, then in the hatreds and inferiority complexes of women, of "the young," etc. The significant aspect of this switch was the severing of economic rewards from productive work. Physiology replaced the conditions of employment as the basis of social claims. The demands were no longer for "just compensation," but just for compensation, with no work required. (A Preview, Part II, pp. 100-101. Emphasis in original)

Ayn Rand at her most imaginative could not have envisioned the Left's future policy of virulent anti-white racism and replacement of the American people with "migrants." But, her usual prescience showed with her description of McGovern that word-for-word can be used to describe Bernie Sanders.  

Of course, the appearance of socialist shyster Sanders is not the only parallel between the 1972 and 2016 election. 2016 was the Flight 93 election. Eight years of Hillary Clinton in the White House, supported by the GOP turncoats running Congress, would have killed off what was left of the original American legacy. Even voters who viewed Donald Trump as a dangerous political unknown supported him over the sociopath Clinton. In the summer of 1972, Rand made the same argument:

I am not an admirer of President Nixon, as my readers know. But I urge every able-minded voter, of any race, creed, color, age, sex, or political party, to vote for Nixon - as a matter of national emergency. This is no longer an issue of choosing the lesser of two commensurate evils. The choice is between a flawed candidate representing Western civilization - and the perfect candidate of its primordial enemies. (A Preview, Part III, pg. 110)

Rand was ecstatic over the victory of Richard Nixon mainly because it signified that the American sense of life was not dead. For her, the election meant that the United States was not doomed to continue its downward trajectory. Needless to say, the country was in far more dire straits by 2016. For nearly thirty years the country had been leaderless with "presidents" eager to sell-out the American people at every opportunity. At the end of President Commissar Pen-and-Phone's reign, many Americans had come to understand that their country was being systematically destroyed. Progressives turned to the hard left of Sanders and Clinton who promised to finish the job. Patriotic Americans understood that there was nobody in the Republican Party who could be trusted to change America's course of destruction.

Enter a principled man of action who actually loves America, holds the American people in high regard and doesn't want to "fundamental transform" the nation into a third-world toilet. Donald Trump had been a public figure for four decades prior to the election. His books were best sellers. He is a master builder who can create out of the chaos of the New York real estate business. Until declaring his candidacy, Trump's reputation was that of a successful, "can do," no-nonsense businessman. Even his reality show on business leadership enhanced his reputation. 

As Ayn Rand observed forty-five years ago, in the 1972 election campaign the American people responded to each candidates' sense of life and not necessarily to their policies. To some extent, the same was true in 2016. Some responded by voting for the fascist criminal Hilary Clinton who promised more of the same statism and corruption and treason that was destroying the country. Others more discerning, responded to the representative of a classic American type. 

Americans are men of action; they do not indulge in self-pity, and they do not accept passive resignation to suffering. In the face of hardships or misfortune, their automatic response is to act, to fight, to solve the problem - an attitude for which they are so frequently condemned by the mystics of the intellectual "elite" of European barrooms and basements. To confront Americans with the patronizing "kindness" of a combined social worker and small-town Lord of the Manor, is such an impertinence that a landslide defeat is the least McGovern deserves for it. (A Nation's Unity, Part III, pg. 130) 

The American people went with the successful "man of action" last November. But, the race was far closer than it should have been. One reason is that for decades academia has been indoctrinating America's children to want and need the "kindness" of overbearing authority. The other prong of the pincer movement against the American sense of life is the mass importation of socialists. The American sense of life has been deeply eroded in the last fifty years; but, it's still here. 

Lady MacBeth and Mentor

Donald Trump is not a pragmatist as many have attempted to smear him. For example, he has held consistent views on trade for the last several decades. One can disagree with his trade policy. But, it is based on a thoughtful application of principles to policy reality. The irony is that many of President Trump's most vociferous critics are themselves dogmatists who are incapable of inductive reasoning or re-evaluating an issue when new facts become available.

Last week President Trump presented a Trifecta on his alleged pragmatism. He went to Utah to roll-back the land grabbing of two predecessors. Both presidents Clinton and Obama nationalized millions of acres of Utah territory at the stroke of their pens dipped in the bile of environmentalists. Trump reversed these acts and returned the land to the state of Utah, “I’ve come to Utah to take a very historic action to reverse federal overreach and restore the rights of this land to your citizens.” When was the last time anyone heard the phrase "roll back" in reference to federal acts? Next, President Trump took a step back from the destruction of American national sovereignty by pulling out the United Nation's global compact on refugees.

By far the biggest news of the week was President Trump's announcement that the American embassy in Israel will be moving to Jerusalem. Congress authorized this move in 1995. Since then, "presidents" have been signing waivers every six months in order to prevent the move. On this issue it's clear who the cowardly pragmatists are and who the courageous man of principle is. 

I think the American people have fundamentally turned aganist the welfare state and the Left's rabid hatred for their country. Hopefully, there are enough real Americans to vote in a full slate of Making American Great Again candidates into Congress to continue what President Trump has started. 

Boy Clinton and McGovern: Evil is Multi-Generational

Review: Pamela Geller, Fatwa: Hunted in America, 2017

On 3 May 2015 freeborn Americans held a "Draw Mohammed" contest and free-speech rally in Garland, Texas. The event was organized by Pamela Geller. It was her response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris and previous cartoon jihads. The event was attacked by two freelance jihadists with connections to ISIS. Fortunately, it was only the jihadists who died that day. Security was solid, despite the Obama FBI's refusal to notify event planners of their information regarding the planned attack. In response to this jihad attack on American soil, the media blamed the victims and poorly hid their disappointment that Geller wasn't killed. 

Pamela Geller: Speaking Truth

In her new book, Fatwa: Hunted in America, Pamela Geller provides the "rest of the story" on the Garland jihad attack. Less than a decade ago Geller burst upon the public scene as an indefatigable leader of the counter-jihad movement and a courageous warrior for American values. For this crime she has been mercilessly smeared by the establishment of both parties. More importantly, this book shows the power of one determined, and knowledgeable, individual. One of Geller's purposes for writing this book is to explain why a non-political, successful New York businesswoman transformed herself into a Lion of Western Civilization - and why it's up to private citizens to fight this war.  

As with many people, Geller's life changed dramatically after the 9/11 attacks. She was dissatisfied with the "answers" provided by the mainstream media and Bush administration. She, therefore, engaged in the most subversive act possible: she educated herself on Islam, sharia and jihad. 

As I familiarized myself with the enemy and his motives and goals, I began to see truths that I believed should be stated, and courses of action that I thought should be taken. But few people, if any, were stating these things, and no one was taking these actions. So I began to write and I began to act. (pg. 14)

She created her own website that became a "go to" clearinghouse on the global jihad being waged against civilization. 

Pamela Geller was widely known among counter-jihad activists by 2007. But, it was her campaign against the jihad victory mosque at Ground Zero in 2010-2011 that vaulted her into the public eye. She wasn't aware of the proposed mosque until the New York Times published a gushing puff piece (of course) on it in early December 2009. Like any decent patriotic American, Geller was outraged by this proposal. She also had the voice, connections and sheer guts to fight the powers of the land and helped stopped its construction. 

Unlike fools or worse, Geller understood the mosque's symbolism - as would Moslems around the world. As she succinctly explains: 

These mosques were designed to mark Islam's victory over and superiority to the religions that Islam views as rivals. Everywhere jihad attacks have been successful, triumphal mosques have been established. The most famous are the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the Aya Sofya Mosque in Istanbul, formerly the Hagia Sophia Cathedral, which, for one thousand years, was the grandest church in the Christian world. Historian Sita Ram Goel has estimated that over two thousand mosques in India were built on sites of Hindu temples. (pg. 38) 

It should be of no surprise that the mainstream media, politicians and other pundits are unaware of or evade this history of the jihad. Their mendacity is in full view after ever jihad attack in the West.  

Sadly, there are those posturing as intellectual leaders who defended the "property rights" of the mosque builders. Although, these people have been answered in detail, they still adhere to their world view of floating, out-of-context abstractions. The conceptual opaqueness of these people is/was quite stunning. One "Objectivist philosopher" with a blog went so far as to blame Geller for not respecting the rights of fifth-columnists at war with the USA: "to forcibly block the construction of the mosque by using unjust laws that violate private property rights is morally wrong, not to mention politically dangerous." This deep thinker then goes on to claim that using zoning laws to stop the mosque would lead the country one step closer to the "gulag." (Seriously) This is one type of the bizarre smears that Geller is subjected to on a daily basis. (To his great credit, Leonard Peikoff set the issue straight. Not that any of these people have learned from such a colossal blunder.)

The main theme or thesis of Geller's book is the difficulty in speaking the truth about Islam and jihad in public. She documents the vicious personal attacks directed at her when she was still just an obscure blogger. One of her finest moments was the defense of Rifqa Bary. Bary fled her devout Moslem home in Ohio to avoid becoming another "honor" killing victim. As Geller documents, the media and court system took the side of the parents. The media were gleeful when the court order Bary to return to Ohio with a murderous fatwa hanging over her head. Saving this young girl from the fatwa was one of the counter-jihad's finest moments. 

The treatment of Rifqa Bary and the suppression of news about honor killings in the United States by the media directly led to Geller's next, and most famous, campaign to get the truth about Islam into the public square. 

In 2010, I was in Florida to attend a court hearing in the Rifqa Bary case. While waiting for a red light at an intersection, I saw in the next lane a bus bearing a huge ad calling people to Islam. It made me think: what about the people who want to leave Islam, like Rifqa, but have no help doing so and know their lives would be threatened if their apostasy were made known? (pg. 93)

Thus began Geller's famous ad campaigns on public transportation to get the truth out. Her ads provided hotlines for those attempting to leave Islam who did not want to be murdered as apostates per sharia law. 

And, you guessed it. The political and media establishments were virulently hostile to the ads produced by her organizations American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA). The level of apoplexy exercised by the country's traitorous elites regarding these ads is breathtaking. Geller provides details on how municipalities and transit authorities in many cities pulled out all the stops to prevent the ads from running. Some went so far as to change their ad policy to rejecting all "advocacy advertisements." The establishment's assault on the First Amendment only induced Geller to create more ads on the topic of jihad and Islam. There are still court cases pending on those ads submitted, but not published.

Pamela Geller's focus on free speech, its suppression by the country's ruling elite and forthrightly arguing for effective measures against the jihad have made her public enemy number one. That this women is continually vilified, while Muslim Brotherhood shills are treated as respectable, indicates the magnitude of the evil that animates our age. Her book should be read by every American, and Westerner, as an antidote to the barrage of lies produced daily by the media. She calls them the "enemedia" for good reason. The "Ground Zero" mosque builders found themselves an appropriate ally with the likes of disgraced degenerate Matt Lauer back in 2010. As with Lauer, the media is filled with creatures who shill for the country's enemies and cover up the actions of their perverted colleagues and Democratic politicians. Ruin their day by purchasing and reading Geller's book.