Like many young people decades ago, I was exposed to the works of Ayn Rand, the famous novelist who escaped Bolshevik Russia in 1925 after experiencing the oppressiveness and dangers of collectivism.  In high school, our class was assigned to read The Fountainhead, Rand’s seminal novel about architect Howard Roark. Roark is a talented, fiercely independent architect who is constantly held back by both mediocre, weak individuals such as career-climber architect Peter Keating and by powerful institutions represented by media mogul Ellsworth Toohey.

Roark is brilliant and refuses to go along to get along, taking slings and arrows from all sides and never backs down from a fight. This book, read at an impressionable age, changed my political views and sent me on a course toward responsible conservatism. (Sadly, it is doubtful that The Fountainhead is ever assigned reading in today’s woke education indoctrination).

My first reaction after listening to Donald Trump’s press conference the day after his sham “conviction” in New York, was that he reminded me of protagonists in Rand’s most famous novels, both Howard Roark in The Fountainhead and Henry Rearden in her later novel, Atlas Shrugged.  Both protagonists were enemies of the collective, forces that were always trying to tear down greatness and level humanity into bland mediocrity.  Both characters fought tirelessly even when being crushed by the system. Both were flawed but epically heroic figures. 

I have been “reluctant Trumper” for many years. His personal flaws bother me as do his deficiencies in executive administration and personnel decisions. However, his absolute, unwavering resolve in fighting back against the corrupt New York and Federal legal system is inspiring. Additionally, for years he has been fighting back against institutions aligned against him, especially the media and the entrenched political class, all dishonest and rabidly afraid of him. Also, judgement-clouded “NeverTrumpers” have been unhelpful to say the least. Even a reluctant Trumper such as me has to admire this spirit and realize that Donald Trump may be the last hope we have of saving our fragile republic. Enough ink has been spilled recounting the myriad failures and corruption of the Biden administration and today’s Democratic party, but suffice it to say, America is at an existential tipping point.

I wish Donald Trump were a better vessel for the heroic role we need now to fight to save our country, but as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously once said, “You go to battle with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” History is replete with flawed, hated leaders who by Providence were selected to meet the moment and save their societies. King David, Winston Churchill, and Abraham Lincoln are a few that come to mind. Our best hope is that Donald Trump can join this pantheon.

In later years, I learned that Ayn Rand was a flawed, complicated person herself and that some of her ideas were wacky at best. But her passionate core belief in the heroic celebration of the individual over the soul-crushing collective was something she got very right.  A rereading of her two most famous novels may be in order to buck up motivation for the fight ahead.

Jeffrey Wright is a Minneapolis-based investment banker, entrepreneur and concerned citizen

Image: Cory Doctorow