Who is Donald ‘John Galt’ Trump?
Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads,
armed with nothing but their own vision.
~ Ayn Rand
Book cover, The Fountainhead (1943) by Ayn Rand. Male figure derivative of the Greek god Prometheus who witnessed the pathetic estate of primitive Mankind freezing on an ice planet – took pity, disobeyed Zeus, stole fire from Mt. Olympus and gave light (e.g., Enlightenment and Civilization, Morality and Reason) as a gift to all Humanity worthy to receive it.
“Who is John Galt?”
“Who is John Galt?” – is the famous opening line of Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand, the objectivist, conservative philosopher and novelist. Although the iconoclastic protagonist, John Galt, isn’t revealed until the third and final of Rand’s novel series, all three books, and arguably her entire oeuvre is directed to answering this pivotal question for the Ages – “Who is John Galt?”
In the narrative of Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt is the hero, the long-awaited Man-of-Action – the male symbol of Ayn Rand herself who by the sheer power of his indomitable will and his unshakeable belief in liberty of the human spirit, will put an end to the corrupt crony Socialism and crony Capitalism that has destroyed the American economy and society for decades.
Who is John Galt? He is recognized as a radical businessman, a Philosopher-King of sorts, a brilliant and creative inventor. In one excerpt from the book Galt expresses his in dominatable belief in the power and magnificence of humanity to improve itself under the transcendent principles found in nature, the limitless potential of the unshackled human mind, and the right of the individual to champion their own self-interests above everything else, and not to be made slaves by being forced (or coerced) to fulfill the interests of the Marxist State as Socialists and Progressives demand of U.S. in modern times. Galt put those sentiments thusly, “I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.”
I understand Galt’s singular statement above to be in essence a declaration of war against the legions of Socialist apparatchiks (bureaucrats) who scurry around the streets and alleyways, the sewers and hallways of Washington, D.C. like plagues of rats and roaches – infecting everything in their path that refuses to bow to their Socialism slavery decrees as spoken by one of the founding Fathers of Fascism, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini who in a 1928 speech to the Chamber of Deputies said these ignominious words – Everything within the State. Nothing outside the State. Nothing against the State.
The Nature of Socialism Slavery
Everything within the State – is indeed the existential words not only of Socialism and Fascism, but of State control, cradle-to-grave, State sponsored slavery. In order to break the slave chains of Socialism slavery and unleash the natural rights of the human spirit, Galt vowed “the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.” This begs the question – What are Galt’s (or America’s) highest, uncompromising values? Thomas Jefferson in his Declaration of Independence said that “among these [values] are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The original Declaration of Independence text stated that the last value was not the amorphous “pursuit of Happiness” but “Property.” In 1776 it was Jefferson’s shot across the bow to be heard down through the Ages against the slave-holding states that the end the evil institution of slavery was nigh at hand. The constitutional Framers hated slavery, where like Socialism one man, has the demonic presumption to possess the god-like power of life and death, blessing and cursing, education or ignorance, liberty or perpetual servitude over another, merely because they paid a price for their human chattel. Likewise, Socialism or State control of the economy via the means of production teaches in the words of Rand to accept Slavery “by degrees, by precedent, by implication, by erosion, by default, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until the day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”
Stone Washington, a gifted young writer for RenewAmerica.com, wrote a revelatory essay on Rand’s magnum opus titled – Atlas Shrugged, America Slouched – The Galt/Trump Revolution. Here he answers the question about “Who is John Galt?” by citing the latest political prodigy who is turning the political world upside down, the Blue-collar Billionaire, Donald J. Trump, who exactly 30 years after Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, sounded a strong pro-America narrative in his 1987 Capitalism classic, The Art of the Deal –
“One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people – I categorize them as life’s losers – who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I’m concerned, if they had any real ability they wouldn’t be fighting me, they’d be doing something constructive themselves.”
This statement by Trump in a nutshell is why Trump is rising and will be America’s next president while his opponents on both sides of the aisle can snipe at his heels from the shadows.
Trump, Galt and Prometheus
There are many similarities between Donald Trump and John Galt. Both have very excellent educations having survived the Marxist indoctrination camps called colleges and came out on the other side with their moral, intellectual, and political worldviews stronger than ever. Trump graduated with honors from the famed Wharton School of Business at the Ivy-League University of Pennsylvania. Galt attended a prestigious university and majored in physics and philosophy, and following graduation, he became a successful engineer and inventor at the Twentieth Century Motor Company, where he designs an innovative new motor powered by static electricity naturally existing in nature. However, like with most successful corporations throughout history, once the original owner dies, so does the time-tested capitalist vision that made the company successful in the first place.
Therefore, after the visionary owner of the company Galt worked for died, his children took over the corporation and because they had nothing invested in what their father built by toil and sweat, these petit Socialists began to immediately disparage and forsake the free market capitalist ideas their father bequeathed to them and started operating the factory by the Marxist Communist aphorism, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Galt, outraged that his Objectivist/Capitalist principles have been rejected, in despair, resigns from the company and forsakes his radical motor idea.
Unlike Trump, who is a real American icon of flesh and blood, Rand’s Galt protagonist in Atlas Shrugged, was originally conceived as a symbolic figure of free market capitalism rather than a “two-dimensional” or realistic person. In an earlier essay I liken Trump to the legendary Olympian god, Prometheus, a comparison that Galt has been equated to, as well as to other iconic figures from literature and history. “More icon than character” was how writer Mimi Reisel Gladstein defined Galt as being portrayed. Ayn Rand’s own notes specified that she anticipated that the Galt character would possess “[n]o progression” and “no inner conflict” because he was “integrated (indivisible) and perfect.”
Trump and Galt follow a very nonconformist, iconoclastic worldview the diametrical opposite of Collectivist, Socialist, and Marxist economic organization portrayed in the novel, in which society controlled by legions of tyrannical apparatchiks and incompetent bureaucrats create a corrupt culture that fosters mediocrity in the name of egalitarianism not equality (e.g., equality of out comes over equality of access), which the novel understands as the inevitable consequence of socialist idealism. Ayn Rand famously said regarding mediocrity – “Do not set out to destroy society – you’ll frighten men. Flood society with mediocrity men in high places – and society is destroyed.” My interpretation of Rand’s famous aphorism in this manner – Do not set out to destroy society – you’ll frighten men. Flood society with mediocrity men in high places – and society is destroyed.
Thus, the book’s opening line, “Who is John Galt?”, has becomes a modernist allegory of utter dependence and despair of We the People as we are crushed by the pitiless, ‘fictionalized’ world for Atlas Shrugged together with the omnipotent machinery of the Socialist State and the legions of ‘Useful Idiots’ as Lenin, the father of the first Communist nation (Soviet Union) called them. When asked “Who is John Galt?”, Rand replies “We are!” I would modify that answer “Who is John Galt?” to move beyond one transcendent political prodigy like Donald J. Trump to affirmatively declare – “We the People.”
Who is John Galt?” It is the man of singular vision and transcendent principles that God has sent to help mankind through the Ages. He has been called by different names – Prometheus, Apollo, Thor, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, David, Jesus, Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Gibbon, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, MLK, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump – The Man with a hammer in one hand and a spike in the other he uses to break the existential slave chains from off the wrists and ankles, to break the slave chains from off the hearts and minds so that We the People will live free as free Men under the Rule of Law, under Capitalism and Nationalism rather than living comfortably as Slaves of the Socialist State.
Ayn Rand said: “Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron-without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.” Here Rand’s ideas seems to be derivative of the famous aphorism by the French philosopher/scientist Rene Descartes (1596–1650) – Cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am, found in Part IV of his opusDiscourse on Method (1637).
RenewAmerica.com writer, Stone Washington in his review essay of Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, in his concluding Epilogue, compared Donald Trump to John Galt and likened both demigod figures to the legendary Prometheus and urged Trump to save America from those who favor “crony government” writing:
- America, We the People must not allow ourselves to continually backslide into decadence. Prometheus has arisen! Atlas has taken his rightful place on stage. Men like Trump and John Galt have held the nation upon their shoulders for too long not to rebel against the crony government. We must wake up and see the vision for greatness Trump seeks to restore back into the heart of this nation, a vision mirrored by John Galt’s vision for prosperity under the success of industrial ideas. [During] this election cycle, it’s time for America stop slouching in mediocrity and rise up to vote for a candidate that will reinvigorate the American legacy as the greatest nation in the History of the World.
What has 50 Years of Conservatism gotten U.S.?
Nationalism is better than Conservatism for the latter is always corrupted by crony Capitalism. Forget who Trump is for a moment and look at the legions of professional conservative apparatchiks, the legions of Republican professional failures, frauds and establishment figures who have dominated the Republican Party even before Ronald Reagan (circa 1964). To a Man they hate Trump, because they fear Trump will expose their cowardly duplicity against America over the past 50 years. The Republican Party and the servile legions of Establishment apparatchiks, have made fortunes as the perpetual minority party – Whether as Fellows in Conservative Think Tanks, one of a very few conservative scholars inside the Academy, or as political pundits on Fox News and other media, writing book after book after book extolling the virtues of Ronald Reagan, Bill Buckley and Conservatism – nothing has changed but the growth of their egos and irrelevance.
What has 50 years of the Conservative Revolution gotten U.S? Abortion is at an all-time high. The Democrats and Republican keep putting evolution atheist judges on federal courts and on SCOTUS to further deconstruct the Rule of Law and Natural Law, the public schools are pathetic and under the Common Core Curriculum our children will only become even more functionally illiterate for life. 50 Years of Conservativism and miseducation has only spawned tens of millions of servile dupes like the legions of youth at Bernie Sanders political rallies – slaves of the Democrat Socialist Party and the Republican Socialist Party.
Communism vs. Socialism, Rand said is the difference between murder and suicide. The result is the same whether the Republicans are the minority in Congress (as in Obama’s first two years [2009-10] or whether they possess solid majorities in Congress (as they have since 2014). In either case the Cowardly Conservatives do absolutely nothing with the great power bestowed upon them by We the People by bow down to Obama’s fascist demands. This is why Trump like John Galt will end the Age of the Tyrant Obama and destroy all of his anti-constitutional, anti-American policies once he become president on January 20, 2017.
What these Conservative Apparatchiks all fail to realize is that even though Trump is a small “c” conservative, yet Trump is the dream candidate the Republicans have complained for 50 years they wished for – A political figure with greater political favorability over every demographic group including people designated by race, education, intellect, age groups, and political ideology from Left to Right. But how? Because Trump isn’t a Populist, Trump is a NATIONALIST – in other words his real motto besides “Make America Great Again” is AMERICA FIRST!
“Who is John Galt”? Yes, Donald J. Trump – Yes, We the People, but the best answer to this Socratic question – “Who is Donald ‘John Galt’ Trump”? is really contained in two simple words, AMERICA FIRST.
Book Notice
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Invitation for manuscripts
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© Ellis Washington
Category: Commentary
