The Atlas Shrugged Congressional Caucus

That some people do not recognize the literary genius of Ayn Rand still amazes me. That some even denigrate her as a bad writer boggles the mind—but I learned to live with it when I realized that these people are mostly punishing themselves. If they want to sit around reading James Joyce instead, well, it's their funeral.

One of the examples of Ayn Rand's creativity is the fact that she wrote a magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, in which the hero doesn't make an appearance until we are about 700 pages into the novel—two thirds of the way through. And yet he is there, in a dozen different ways, from the very first sentence: "Who is John Galt?" That's one of the ways she gave him a constant presence. She turned him into a commonplace slang catchphrase. In the novel, "Who is John Galt?" is popular as an expression of resignation, usually explained as: "Don't ask questions nobody can answer." But of course, John Galt can answer them, and he appears with a message that is the opposite of hopelessness and resignation.

In a tribute to the genius of that literary device, in the past year and a half John Galt has once again become a popular catchphrase—but this time, in real life. It's not in the form of "Who is John Galt?" but in the form of "going Galt." That phrase was originally summoned to refer to the idea—a direct reference to the plot and theme of Atlas Shrugged—that productive people will withdraw their full effort in protest against the onslaught of taxes and regulations launched by the Obama administration. But it has come to be a catchphrase for the overall influence of Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged as an inspiration for the political rebellion against President Obama's push for unlimited government power.

I have already mentioned the radicalization I've observed among the current crop of Republican candidates, and the influence of Ayn Rand on a significant number of them. So I was delighted to see another example in George Will's latest column for the Washington Post. It is a profile of Ron Johnson, the presumptive Republican nominee who will challenge Wisconsin's vulnerable incumbent Senator Russ Feingold this November.

Will notes that Johnson "calls Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged his 'foundational book.'" And like many of Ayn Rand's heroes, he is an industrialist—a manufacturer of plastic products. Here is what Johnson is running on:

The theme of his campaign, the genesis of which was an invitation to address a tea party rally, is: "First of all, freedom."… "The most basic right," Johnson says, "is the right to keep your property." Remembering the golden age when, thanks to Ronald Reagan, the top income tax rate was 28 percent, Johnson says: "For a brief moment we were 72 percent free."

Will notes that, despite the influence of the atheistic Ayn Rand, Johnson is "a pro-life Lutheran." "But this year the 'social issues,' as normally understood, are less important than the social issue as Johnson understands it—the transformation of American society in a way foreshadowed in [Ayn Rand's] fiction."

Will concludes: "The novel's famous opening words—'Who is John Galt?'—refer to a creative capitalist, Rand's symbol of society's self-sufficient people who, weary of carrying on their shoulders the burden of dependent people, shrug. Ron Johnson would rather run."

I've predicted that the next Congress will have a Tea Party Caucus of radical pro-liberty members. But I'm also beginning to wonder whether it will have an Atlas Shrugged Caucus. It won't be an Objectivist Caucus, mind you, because many of them are like Johnson and don't accept the whole of Ayn Rand's philosophy. But there could be a dozen or so congressmen who share and acknowledge Ayn Rand's influence on their views of the nature and role of government, and the morality of capitalism, individual liberty, and property rights.

Like I've been saying, this is an interesting and unprecedented year. Let's make the most of it.—RWT

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Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of "The Intellectual Activist (TIA)" and contributor to "The Freedom Fighter's Journal"