{"id":6108,"date":"2016-04-19T21:49:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T21:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=6108"},"modified":"2016-04-19T22:03:02","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T22:03:02","slug":"trump-howard-roark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2016\/04\/trump-howard-roark\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Trump a Howard Roark? – Article by Edward Hudgins"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"The<\/a>Edward Hudgins<\/span>
\n<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
******************************<\/div>\n
\"Roark<\/a>Donald Trump recently said he\u2019s a fan of Ayn Rand\u2019s novel The Fountainhead<\/i>. Even if you haven\u2019t read it, a reflection on the key characters in that excellent work will help you understand much of what\u2019s wrong with The Donald. Not wishing to write a book-length treatment on the subject, I\u2019ll focus on just one thing that\u2019s relevant to the presidential election: how one treats others.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

In an interview with Kristen Powers<\/a>, Trump said of The Fountainhead<\/i>, \u201cIt relates to business \u2026 beauty \u2026 life and inner emotions.\u00a0That book relates to \u2026 everything.\u201d\u00a0(Here he\u2019s right!) He identified\u00a0with Howard Roark, the novel\u2019s architect hero, loosely based on Frank Lloyd Wright<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

Roark treats people with respect<\/b>
\nHoward 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\u2019t work for the approval of others.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t particularly impressed in any case.<\/p>\n

Roark must find individuals and enterprises that want his buildings. But he is quite clear that \u201cI don\u2019t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.\u201d He does not bastardize his buildings\u2014sticking columns or balconies on them just to make sales. He has his standards. He is honest with his prospective clients and tries to educate them. He respects them enough to treat them like intelligent individuals. If they can\u2019t accept his style, that is unfortunate, but Roark will not pander. Roark has integrity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wynand panders to the lowest<\/b>
\nAnother major character in the novel is Gail Wynand, who rose from nothing to build a chain of \u201cBanner\u201d newspapers. Wynand is good at what he does but what he does is not good. He builds his empire by appealing to the lowest common denominator among his readers. He is a yellow journalist who feeds them scandal, sensation, and schlock. He sees his readers as basically stupid and irrational, and his idea of success is not to appeal to the best within them but, rather, the worst, assuming they deserve nothing better.<\/p>\n

And that is how Trump approaches prospective voters in his political campaign. It\u2019s all a sensationalist, headline-grabbing show. It\u2019s saying the most outrageous things to appeal to emotions on the assumption that his audience can\u2019t or doesn\u2019t want to actually think.<\/p>\n

Which works?<\/b>
\nBut there is a major difference between Wynand and Trump. Wynand wants power over others but his sense of self-worth is not dependent on the adulation of the mob he wants to rule. 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.<\/p>\n

By contrast, in The Fountainhead<\/i>, when the novel\u2019s most malicious villain who has tried to block Roark\u2019s career approaches him and asks \u201cWhat do you think of me?\u201d Roark responds, \u201cBut I don\u2019t think of you.\u201d That\u2019s true self-esteem<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Which approach works better: Roark\u2019s career built on dealing with people based on reason, or Wynand\u2019s career built on treating people like idiots? Read The Fountainhead<\/i> to discover the intriguing answer you probably already suspect. In terms of Trump\u2019s political career, it will depend on how many voters prefer to be treated like idiots rather than with respect.<\/p>\n

Dr. Edward Hudgins directs advocacy and is a senior scholar for The Atlas Society, the center for Objectivism in Washington, D.C.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Copyright The Atlas Society. For more information, please visit www.atlassociety.org<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edward Hudgins ****************************** Donald Trump recently said he\u2019s a fan of Ayn Rand\u2019s novel The Fountainhead. Even if you haven\u2019t read it, a reflection on the key characters in that excellent work will help you understand much of what\u2019s wrong with The Donald. Not wishing to write a book-length treatment on the subject, I\u2019ll focus on just one thing that\u2019s relevant to the presidential election: how one treats others. In an interview with Kristen Powers, Trump said of The Fountainhead,…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,5],"tags":[4598,4402,42,4653,4220,1649,4652,4651,44,38,1158],"class_list":["post-6108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-politics","tag-2016-presidential-election","tag-atlas-society","tag-ayn-rand","tag-compassion","tag-donald-trump","tag-edward-hudgins","tag-frank-lloyd-wright","tag-gail-wynand","tag-objectivism","tag-politics-2","tag-the-fountainhead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6111,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6108\/revisions\/6111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}