Thursday, May 21, 2026

'Last Week Tonight' asks 'Ayn Rand - How Is This Still A Thing?' for Throwback Thursday

Happy Throwback Thursday! I'm pulling a video out of the archives for today, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver asking Ayn Rand - How Is This Still A Thing?

Ayn Rand, author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead," is still kind of a thing. How?
I'm surprised I missed this video when it was uploaded twelve years ago and it took me this long to watch it and embed it. As I wrote in CNBC explains 'How Private Equity Is Behind Red Lobster And TGI Fridays' Bankruptcies,' a tale of the Retail Apocalypse for Wayback Wednesday, "Longtime readers should know that I have a dim view of Rand and Objectivism; some of my newer readers are learning this, as they've made A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP from the back catalog the ninth most read entry during the 2024-2025 blogging year." That written, suggesting Donald Trump as a better example of selfishness turned out to be prophetic. I wrote less about Rand and her pseudophilosophy after he ran for President.

While Trump, who I've been calling Hoover Harding Cleveland and will now start calling Pervert Hoover, may be a good (bad) example of selfishness, he does not aspire to be a philosopher. On the other hand, Curtis Yarvin does. As I wrote in Leeja Miller examines 'The Ideology Behind The End Of Democracy', "I've decided to focus on Yarvin/Moldbug as a source of the terrible ideas being implemented by this administration. He seems to be replacing Ayn Rand and Objectivism as the person and philosophy animat[ing] the Right." I'm not sure that's an improvement.

Rand and Objectivism were the topics of two of last year's top posts. Follow over the jump for their stories.


Web search kept A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP from December 30, 2013 among the most read during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News. It earned 112 default and 163 raw page views during March 2025 to rank eleventh by the former and twelfth by the latter during the month. During April 2025 it accumulated 267 default and 338 raw page views to place fifth by the former and second by the latter. During May 2025, it gained 173 default and 233 raw page views to rank ninth by default and seventh by raw page views. It earned 508 default and 585 raw page views to be the top post of June 2025, its best month ever! It was the third most read entry during July 2025 with 236 default and 253 raw page views. Aftr skipping August through October, it returned to the top twenty in November 2025 with 106 default and 116 raw page views to rank 14th by the former and 13th by the latter. December 2025 saw it gain 150 default and 160 raw page views to place eighth. It placed second during January 2026 with 434 default and 456 raw page views, its third best month ever. It ranked tenth with 103 default and seventh with 196 raw page view during February 2026. Finally, it was the third most read entry of March 2026 with 285 default and 374 raw page views. All of these and most resulted in the entry ending the blogging year with ~2,300 default and ~3,190 raw page views to be the third most read entry between March 21, 2025 and March 20, 2026.

A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP is no stranger to these retrospectives. It was among the all-time top ten in 2014 and 2015 only to fall out later in 2015 and failed to return in 2016. It was the second most commented on entry during 2020-2021. It was among the most active links I tweeted during 2021-2022. Finally, it ranked ninth during the 2024-2025 blogging year with 678 raw page views. It currently has 6575 raw page views, a little more than 400 page views behind 'Star Wars' alignment charts, the current 25th place post. A return to the all-time top 25 is entirely possible.


Web search garnered Ayn Rand on love and sex from November 28, 2011 467 raw page views to rank 73rd overall during the blogging year.

That's a wrap for today's look back. Stay tuned for Flashback Friday.

Previous posts in this series Previous retrospectives about the back catalog.
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