Is Trump a Howard Roark?

[Ed Hudgins]

Is Trump a Howard Roark?
By Edward Hudgins

Donald Trump recently said he’s a fan of Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead. Even if you haven’t read it, a reflection on the key characters in that excellent work will help you understand much of what’s wrong with The Donald. Not wishing to write a book-length treatment on the subject, I’ll focus on just one thing that’s relevant to the presidential election: how one treats others.

In an interview with Kristen Powers, Trump said of The Fountainhead, “It relates to business … beauty … life and inner emotions. That book relates to … everything.” (Here he’s right!) He identified with Howard Roark, the novel’s architect hero, loosely based on Frank Lloyd Wright. Trump builds buildings too, so no doubt a novel on the subject would interest him. But much of the resemblance between Roark and Trump ends there.
 

Roark treats people with respect

Howard Roark loves the creative work of designing buildings for the purpose of seeing them built just the way he designs them. His work is his source of pride. He doesn’t work for the approval of others.

Roark must struggle because in his world established architects simply want to imitate the styles of the past, mainly to impress other people who, for the most part, aren’t particularly impressed in any case.

Roark must find individuals and enterprises that want his buildings. But he is quite clear that “I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.” He does not bastardize his buildings—sticking columns or balconies on them just to make sales. He has his standards... (Continue reading here.  And on Twitter follow Edward Hudgins @DrEdwardHudgins. )

[BaalChatzaf]

Howard Roark  did not have bad hair as does The Donald.  And Roark actually designed buildings as opposed to playing money games to pay for them.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If one thinks Trump is trying to be an architect, there is an argument to be made here.

But not if one considers the showman side of Trump. What showman on earth doesn't want an audience? Getting an audience is part of his job description and showmanship is a valid product that is sold on the open market. There is nothing dishonest, sleazy or immoral about it.

Anyone minimally familiar with Trump knows his first love was cinema, not real estate. He wanted to make movies. So when he made his decision to go into real estate (partly to honor his father, but partly because he liked the money and had an excellent mentor in his father), he decided to do it with pizazz. He mashed up his showman dreams with real estate and got the best of both worlds.

That is just about as far from Gail Wynand as I can think of.

Believe me, when Rand helped make the film version of The Fountainhead, she was very much interested in its popular success. I can't imagine her being indifferent to a flop. After Atlas Shrugged was trashed by the critics, she spent two years crying about it. How's that for: "But I don't think of you"? Did Ayn Rand have low self-esteem?

I personally saw Rand twice at the Ford Hall forum (once inside the hall and once outside because I did not get there in time--she came out and waved at the overflow crowd. She basked in the applause. Basked in it. She loved every second of it and it showed all over her. Back then, this left quite an impression on a young adult Michael Stuart Kelly.

Did this make her a hypocrite or put her in Peter Keating mode? And did she write her novels so she would not have to think about her readers? But I don't think of you, reader. Don't read my book. I don't care.

Of course not. If anyone believes this, I have a good deal on Niagara Falls I can off you. Yup. The whole damn thing's for sale, and cheap, too.  

I submit--hell, it's more than submit, I know for a fact--there is an entire category of top entrepreneurs who love and follow Ayn Rand's ideas, but they do not get involved with ARI or TAS or any of the formal organizations precisely because of these kinds of oversimplifications.

People like Mark Cuban, Joe Polish, Yanik Silver and so on (and there are many, many others) vastly prefer to continue being themselves than having some academic try to tell them how to live based on a limited view of Rand's ideas. Besides, they get their money from the free market, not from charity or donations.

Which one truly incorporates Rand's ideas? The free-market doer or the donation-taking talker?

I prefer both doers and talkers, but if I had to choose one, which Rand organization people make you choose all the time, I'm on the doer side. Not the talker side.

Screw their sanction of the victim game.

The people who deny Donald Trump's admiration of Ayn Rand and Howard Roark are people who will never do what Donald Trump, Ayn Rand or Howard Roark did in life. (Roark in fictional life, of course.) They won't even come close. 

And if that feels like a slap in the face, it's not me doing the slapping. It's reality.

Michael

[Ed Hudgins]

Michael – I agree with a good bit of what you say. I want people to read my pieces and think well of them. I want people to listen to my speeches and say “Boy, that kicked butt!” I’m proud of my work. And ultimately, I’d like my efforts to change minds, to “make a dent in the universe” as Steve Jobs said.

I assume my efforts will at best change minds that have mixed premises but that are changeable. I hope my efforts will bring some new light or perspective to those who do share my values. I’m disappointed when they don’t. But I usually have a good sense of whether the fault lies in my work on in the audience. I want applause for the right reasons as did Rand.

I judge that the Human Achievement Alliance project I’ve been trying to interest people in for some time is one of my best and most important ideas since my Index of Economic Freedom idea. I’ve had some very positive reactions but so far we haven’t been showered with money for the project. In part that’s because I haven’t developed a detailed enough business plan. Perhaps it’s no analogous to the reaction to Rand for Atlas Shrugged. But I know the feeling.

Still, I’ve been advocating for years and being dumped on for years, so I’ve developed a pretty thick skin. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in this business.

My criticism of Trump is that he seeks adulation by pandering to ignorance. I think he’s smart and, thus, I don’t think he can be so stupid as to not understand that his policies on trade or rounding up illegals just won’t work. (If he is that ignorant or unthinking, that’s a major problem too.) So he’s like Wynand, treating his audience with contempt.

Reagan no doubt wanted applause as well. But he appealed to the best in people. Trump appeals the worst. And therein is the problem.

Cheers!
Ed
------
On Twitter follow Edward Hudgins @DrEdwardHudgins.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

5 hours ago, Ed Hudgins said:

My criticism of Trump is that he seeks adulation by pandering to ignorance.

Ed,

I'm glad you were not offended.

And, you may have noticed over the years, I am not one to dump on you, even when we disagree. On the contrary, I have always tried to be a good friend. Distant, maybe, but good. And I wish you success. I always have.

Your statement above is a premise I would check if I were you. That, and saying Trump treats his audience with contempt, that he appeals to the worst in people, etc. 

When I use my own two eyes on Trump and what he appeals to, and look within my own soul and see what he appeals to, I can only conclude your premise is based on dogma or prejudice, not observation. I don't even think your evaluation is wrong--I think it is based on blurting without proper identification. I think you literally don't see what Trump appeals to, not that you see it and disagree with it. Your standard does not come from observable reality (why not ask Trump supporters or observe what they do?), but instead, an abstract construct accepted in the place of reality. Especially when I point and say, "I mean that," and you don't see it.

Try pandering to ignorance someday and build a Trump Tower--including cutting through all the regulatory crap (not just in New York, but the world over). See how far that pandering will hold your skyscraper up or fill it with top-paying preeminent clients. You need reason and lots of it. There. I pointed. I can even give you pictures in the manner of Roark giving a set of pictures to the judge. Do you see it?

Trump certainly does not appeal to ignorance in me. He appeals to my best.

Since that happens with many, many, many people, that would be a great place to start checking that premise if you ever become so inclined.

Why does Trump appeal to the best within productive working-class people and entrepreneurs and the worst in establishment-friendly intellectuals? You think the contrary, but here's an example of what I mean. You haven't called me nasty names (except by extension from your generalizations), but certainly other anti-Trump intellectuals from O-Land have. I haven't done the contrary.

I would say I listen to my better angels and the anti-Trump intellectuals do not. 

(btw - This is a general behavior with Trump supporters. There are fringe exceptions, but non-nastiness and good manners is the way most act.)

Once you start answering that question (if you ever do), you may not like the answer, but at least it will start reflecting observable reality.

Here's another question to help along. Why did Rand choose, of all people, Phil Donahue, to do mainstream TV interviews near the end of her life? I guarantee you that TAS and ARI intellectuals would have never chosen him had they been advising her. They would have called Donahue evil, pandering to ignorance, appealing to the worst in people, yada yada yada--very similar to what they (including you) are doing with Trump right now. Hell, Peter Schwartz and his co-editor did not even include the Donahue interviews in Objectively Speaking, a book specifically devoted to her interviews. Yet the Donahue interviews were among her most popular. They are all over YouTube.

Why did Ayn Rand do it? What did she see in the liberal Phil Donahue that her intellectual-oriented followers can't or won't? And even more important, why did she compliment Phil Donahue on his achievement in attaining success in one of those interviews? I'm going on memory and I think it was the one where she wore the blue dress, but I can certainly find the passage if needed.

You guys won't even acknowledge Trump's massive and magnificent productive achievements without denigrating them or him, so I have little doubt what you would say about Donahue unprompted. Yet there Ayn Rand sits on video, right in front of Phil Donahue, telling him it's a pleasure to be there and what a great achievement he has accomplished.

Did she see something you don't or do you just prefer to ignore the whole thing?

I won't ignore it.

I don't speak for Ayn Rand, but I just can't imagine her endorsing your view of Donald Trump. She's dead, so we'll never know. But there is certainly no homogeneous historical or intellectual evidence like you guys insinuate.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Trump is a human being.

Roark is a work of art.

Mix them together and you've got trouble. That's what happened to Rand and Branden: bliss, trouble, rubble.

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

Ed,

Here is a key sentence from your post:

Quote

Trump, on the other hand, seems to drink up the applause of his audience, and if someone challenges him, it's personal and rates the response of the most insecure playground bully.

The first conjunct doesn't bother me per se.  Trump likes applause—that's a common trait amongst people who go into showbiz, and no one faulted Louis Armstrong for it.

I do get a little concerned when Trump seeks more applause by telling an audience that appears to love him how much other people love him.  Or when he veers off-topic during a press conference, just to work in another reference to some group of people who he thinks love him (Scott Walker rides a motorcycle - maybe that's good - oh, did you know that motorcycle riders love me the most? - where was I?).

It's the second conjunct that's really worrisome.  Whether it's announcing that he won't appear on Fox News if Megyn Kelly is involved, because she asked him one tough question on the air, or losing the Wisconsin primary by running like a left-wing Democrat against a guy who wasn't on the primary ballot (Scott Walker), because Walker had run against him for President.

Robert

 

[Robert Campbell]

On April 21, 2016 at 0:25 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Why did Rand choose, of all people, Phil Donahue, to do mainstream TV interviews near the end of her life? I guarantee you that TAS and ARI intellectuals would have never chosen him had they been advising her. They would have called Donahue evil, pandering to ignorance, appealing to the worst in people, yada yada yada--very similar to what they (including you) are doing with Trump right now. Hell, Peter Schwartz and his co-editor did not even include the Donahue interviews in Objectively Speaking, a book specifically devoted to her interviews. Yet the Donahue interviews were among her most popular. They are all over YouTube.

Michael,

People say the darnedest things in Rand-land.

But in no corner, spot, neighborhood, or microclimate have I ever heard that Ayn Rand shouldn't have gone on Phil Donahue's show, because that, at the mildest, was casting the pearls without the pork chop.

I don't even know whether Peter Schwartz believes such a thing, though he and his two-person entourage are so ill-equipped to broadcast their opinions that I might have missed it.

Speaking of ARI intellectuals... Leonard Peikoff was advising her when she went on Donahue.  Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz were trying.

So I truly have no idea what you're talking about.

Phil Donahue was not Gail Wynand.

Donald Trump is not Phil Donahue.

Did Phil Donahue ever try to get his viewers to believe that the Long Island Railroad is in bad shape because railroads in CHIIiina have trains that run at 250 mph—and all it will take to get acceptable performance out of the LIRR is to elect one loud guy so he can redo all the trade deals with that country?

Robert

 

 

Edited April 22, 2016 by Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

Heh.

That's one hell of an image: Schwartz, Peikoff or Binswanger saying in public that Ayn Rand was wrong to go on the Phil Donahue show. Hell, they don't even say she should not have had her affair with Nathaniel Branden. They blame it all on him. So how on earth would they ever say she was at fault for her choice of TV interviewer?

Over the years in online debates, I recall harsh words about Phil Donahue the liberal from those quarters and from TAS places, too. In fact from many O-Land places. I would have to do some serious digging to find it, though, since Donahue has fallen from public relevance, so he has not been discussed much.

Besides, since when did Ayn Rand follow the advice of anyone once she made her mind up? She certainly didn't follow any advice about having an affair with Nathaniel Branden of in keeping it hidden.

If her acolytes disagreed with her at the time about her choice of Donahue, which I imagine they did--thinking with their knees like they do, wouldn't that be more the reason to keep their traps shut? They would fear falling from grace and being expelled from the Randian Garden of Eden.

Just as you point to nothing negative from them about her choice of Donahue, I also point to nothing positive. But I can point to Schwartz's omission of Donahue from the book of her interviews. It's not as if they don't have an agenda in omitting things when they publish her stuff. You, yourself, have a long thread here on OL (a brilliant one, I might add) detailing their omissions and alterations in the Q&A book.

Don't forget, too, that the Donahue interviews are where Rand had that silly alteration with the silly young lady and, also, said that no woman could ever want to be president of the USA without being mentally ill. I imagine that would be another reason to omit them.

Now, if Rand had trounced the liberal Donahue with some classic putdown lines, Schwartz would have led with those interviews. But not when she showed respect to him.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

On 4/20/2016 at 8:05 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

Howard Roark  did not have bad hair as does The Donald.  And Roark actually designed buildings as opposed to playing money games to pay for them.

On the other hand, they are both noted for blowing up abominations. Roark blew up the Cortlandt Building, and Drumpf is in the process of blowing up the Republican Party (actually, whether it nominates him or not).  

REB

[Roger Bissell]

On 4/22/2016 at 2:54 PM, Robert Campbell said:

On 4/21/2016 at 11:25 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Why did Rand choose, of all people, Phil Donahue, to do mainstream TV interviews near the end of her life? I guarantee you that TAS and ARI intellectuals would have never chosen him had they been advising her. They would have called Donahue evil, pandering to ignorance, appealing to the worst in people, yada yada yada--very similar to what they (including you) are doing with Trump right now. Hell, Peter Schwartz and his co-editor did not even include the Donahue interviews in Objectively Speaking, a book specifically devoted to her interviews. Yet the Donahue interviews were among her most popular. They are all over YouTube.

 

People say the darnedest things in Rand-land.

But in no corner, spot, neighborhood, or microclimate have I ever heard that Ayn Rand shouldn't have gone on Phil Donahue's show, because that, at the mildest, was casting the pearls without the pork chop.

 

Perhaps this is an unfair comparison, but Milton Friedman gave the most eloquent defense of (private) greed, while Donahue looked on like the proverbial deer in the headlights. (I gloat at his discomfiture every time I watch the video.) One of the most socially beneficial things about YouTube is that Friedman's stunningly good appearance is still there for people to watch. I think it will persuade far more people of the morality of rational self-interest than all of Rand's public appearances combined.

Of course, there is the spin-off benefit that people will be intrigued enough by Rand's comments to actually read her books and learn of the philosophy that way, but she is really not very persuasive in person. To me, anyway. And this is true of many worthwhile thinkers, not just Rand. They've got the written word nailed, but when speaking to people, they come across as stiff or cranky or not quite in the same world as the rest of us. I especially see this in Rand's Donahue appearances.

Should she have refrained from going on the show? Depends on what she was after. If it was to win friends and influence people by the sheer personal power of her live presentation, definitely not. (I don't know whether she was aware of how awkward and unpleasant she came across in person.) But if it was to be a human billboard or advertisement for her written works, absolutely yes, and for the same reason that the Atlas Shrugged movies, as mediocre as they were, were very effective as publicity.

REB

[Roger Bissell]

On 4/22/2016 at 2:54 PM, Robert Campbell said:

Phil Donahue was not Gail Wynand.

Donald Trump is not Phil Donahue.

 

I hope you realize that this does not prove that Donald Trump is not Gail Wynand.

(Actually, I think Drumpf is more of an amalgam of Gail Wynand, Peter Keating, and Lois Cook. Electing him would be, to borrow the words of Tamara Balderas, "essentially putting a monkey on the throne.")

REB

[Roger Bissell]

On 4/21/2016 at 9:44 AM, Ed Hudgins said:

I want people to read my pieces and think well of them. I want people to listen to my speeches and say “Boy, that kicked butt!” I’m proud of my work. And ultimately, I’d like my efforts to change minds, to “make a dent in the universe” as Steve Jobs said.

I assume my efforts will at best change minds that have mixed premises but that are changeable. I hope my efforts will bring some new light or perspective to those who do share my values. I’m disappointed when they don’t. But I usually have a good sense of whether the fault lies in my work on in the audience. I want applause for the right reasons as did Rand.

I judge that the Human Achievement Alliance project I’ve been trying to interest people in for some time is one of my best and most important ideas since my Index of Economic Freedom idea. I’ve had some very positive reactions but so far we haven’t been showered with money for the project. In part that’s because I haven’t developed a detailed enough business plan. Perhaps it’s no analogous to the reaction to Rand for Atlas Shrugged. But I know the feeling.

Still, I’ve been advocating for years and being dumped on for years, so I’ve developed a pretty thick skin. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in this business.

2

Ed, you do kick butt and you are making "a dent in the universe."

But I can only guess at what you mean by having "developed thick skin" and "being dumped on for years," considering how I've been lauded and honored and praised to the rafters all across the Objectivist spectrum for decades.  

Anyway, keep up the good work! (Imagine applause or thumbs-up emoticon inserted here.  )

REB

[Robert Campbell]

26 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

I hope you realize that this does not prove that Donald Trump is not Gail Wynand.

(Actually, I think Drumpf is more of an amalgam of Gail Wynand, Peter Keating, and Lois Cook. Electing him would be, to borrow the words of Tamara Balderas, "essentially putting a monkey on the throne.")

REB

Roger,

Nope, it doesn't.

More widely, I see no point in trying to identify Donald Trump with one character in an Ayn Rand novel: heroic, villainous, or neither.

Robert

Edited April 24, 2016 by Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

On April 22, 2016 at 5:27 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

But I can point to Schwartz's omission of Donahue from the book of her interviews. It's not as if they don't have an agenda in omitting things when they publish her stuff. You, yourself, have a long thread here on OL (a brilliant one, I might add) detailing their omissions and alterations in the Q&A book.

Don't forget, too, that the Donahue interviews are where Rand had that silly alteration with the silly young lady and, also, said that no woman could ever want to be president of the USA without being mentally ill. I imagine that would be another reason to omit them.

Now, if Rand had trounced the liberal Donahue with some classic putdown lines, Schwartz would have led with those interviews. But not when she showed respect to him.

Michael,

I expect you're right about Peter Schwartz deciding not to include transcripts from the Donahue appearances in Objectively Speaking.  It's not a book I've made a study of—Mayhew's Q&A compilation was enough work, and it was easier to get hold of recordings for a lot of the material there.

Not including material that either makes Rand look bad, or that Rand wouldn't have thought made her look bad (but Leonard Peikoff thinks would make him look bad), is part of the modus operandi at ARI.

It's pretty dumb, leaving them out of such a book, because so many people have seen them.  But this would not deter anyone who's been given the rewriting assignment.

Even so, her appearances would have been left out because of what she said during them.  It would not have been because they were on Phil Donahue's show.

Robert

[william.scherk]

18 hours ago, Robert Campbell said:

18 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

I hope you realize that this does not prove that Donald Drumpf is not Gail Wynand.

Roger,

Nope, it doesn't.

I can't get a word in edgewise ... 

Here below is my tussle with Roger over The Other, Cartooning an argument, and comparing Drumpf to a fictional orange-haired man. I give Drumpf a break for an off-hand remark. and simply chuckle at his choosing a character so unlike him as inspiration -- for life, love, work, the universe and everything. Perhaps it mixes down to being an iron-ribbed individualist, one of a kind, one of the golden-orange titans, and that mix lifts Donald's heart. 

There, I have said too much. 

Here below I talk with Roger the Robot, in a roller-rink rinkside chat over battered fudge-on-a-stick and forty-ounce gin slushies.  

From the OL blog Friends and Foes' awful and gossipy thread "Conversation-Starters," which as part of OL's most popular blog, has slightly over a bozillion views. I kid you not.   Thanks to all my Facebook likers.  As Sally Field might put it ...

Brant, as you skate by the video, be aware that it is thirteen minutes of scantily clad roller-disco bunnies from High Jiggle 1970s culture.

I will do anything to dress up my entertainment PODs.

Edited April 25, 2016 by william.scherk
Added link to OL's most popular blog; a note to Brant, who probably likes jiggle as much as the next guy. He can always turn off the volume.

[BaalChatzaf]

17 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

On the other hand, they are both noted for blowing up abominations. Roark blew up the Cortlandt Building, and Drumpf is in the process of blowing up the Republican Party (actually, whether it nominates him or not).  

REB

Good luck to The Donald in demolishing the feckless and degenerate Republican Party.  Abe Lincoln is probably turning over in his grave.

[Brant Gaede]

14 hours ago, william.scherk said:

I can't get a word in edgewise ... 

Here below is my tussle with Roger over The Other, Cartooning an argument, and comparing Drumpf to a fictional orange-haired man. I give Drumpf a break for an off-hand remark. and simply chuckle at his choosing a character so unlike him as inspiration -- for life, love, work, the universe and everything. Perhaps it mixes down to being an iron-ribbed individualist, one of a kind, one of the golden-orange titans, and that mix lifts Donald's heart. 

There, I have said too much. 

Here below I talk with Roger the Robot, in a roller-rink rinkside chat over battered fudge-on-a-stick and forty-ounce gin slushies.  

From the OL blog Friends and Foes' awful and gossipy thread "Conversation-Starters," which as part of OL's most popular blog, has slightly over a bozillion views. I kid you not.   Thanks to all my Facebook likers.  As Sally Field might put it ...

Brant, as you skate by the video, be aware that it is thirteen minutes of scantily clad roller-disco bunnies from High Jiggle 1970s culture.

I will do anything to dress up my entertainment PODs.

I won't watch it. It's not HD.

--Brant

I have high standards

[Roger Bissell]

9 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

14 hours ago, william.scherk said:

I can't get a word in edgewise ... 

Here below is my tussle with Roger over The Other, Cartooning an argument, and comparing Drumpf to a fictional orange-haired man. I give Drumpf a break for an off-hand remark. and simply chuckle at his choosing a character so unlike him as inspiration -- for life, love, work, the universe and everything. Perhaps it mixes down to being an iron-ribbed individualist, one of a kind, one of the golden-orange titans, and that mix lifts Donald's heart. 

There, I have said too much. 

Here below I talk with Roger the Robot, in a roller-rink rinkside chat over battered fudge-on-a-stick and forty-ounce gin slushies.  

From the OL blog Friends and Foes' awful and gossipy thread "Conversation-Starters," which as part of OL's most popular blog, has slightly over a bozillion views. I kid you not.   Thanks to all my Facebook likers.  As Sally Field might put it ...

Brant, as you skate by the video, be aware that it is thirteen minutes of scantily clad roller-disco bunnies from High Jiggle 1970s culture.

I will do anything to dress up my entertainment PODs.

 

I won't watch it. It's not HD.

 

I felt that way at first, too, Brant. In particular, I thought the lack of high definition was the cause of all the jiggling in the video image. Then I realized the "objects" actually were jiggling, and I relaxed and enjoyed it.  

REB