If you don't vote for freedom, you're a moral monster who is also committing a Natural Law crime. If you don't publicly support, and privately vote, for political freedom, then freedom will never win. I notice that about 95% of all Objectivists and libertarians publicly support and vote for slavery. They support welfare statism and tyranny based on the pitiful "lesser evil" and "it's an emergency" excuses. What amorality and irresponsibility. When it comes to political science, 95% of all Objectivists and libertarians -- including Ayn Rand -- are intellectual incompetents, moral lowlifes, and practical failures. They never publicly support or vote for freedom. Then they plaintively ask why political freedom never advances or wins. Gee, I wonder.

First of all, I pay attention to the candidates in local elections. I vote for the person, not the party. As I said to Mark Hunter, the larger the electorate, the less your vote counts. At the national level, you are just making yourself feel good, whatever your decision. As important as voting is, donating money to campaigns is the real test of personal commitment. Again, I donate at the local level. As with any other interpersonal involvement--or reality in general, if you stop to think about it--you accept trade-offs. You can manage much of your own life. You have less control over others. So, you necessarily accept that whoever the candidate or whichever the party, you will not approve of 100% of their policies. And you do not need to. 

I am an Objectivist (Particularly the one that introduced Objectivism to my country of birth, Argentina, back in the 80's). Thus, I'm not a U.S. American. Still, I think that my opinion should be heard by American Objectivists, for this time the option is very simple, the name of it being Trump. Why? Because he's, in my way of looking at it, the bridge American Objectivists need to gather a sufficiently big amount of Objectivists to definitively influence the outcome of civilization in 4 years, for, should the Dems, i.e. the leftwingers win, there will be no further chance for Objectivism to gain the quantitative increase required to expand our philosophy both in the States and the rest of the world. Growth needs time, and 4 years is a big amount of time for growth. It's a matter of compromising this time. I myself favor Trump due to his being a businessman and, as such, he wants a peaceful and productive environment, which he asserted already by moving Arabs and Jews to agree to join their mutual existence in peace. I'm fully against him when it comes to religiosity, anti.abortion, and so forth. But this time, such details can be swiped aside. What is needed is his decision to keep America as peaceful and productive as possible, and it will move many countries to reconsider their stand against his way of handling politics. This, in itself, will favor Objectivism's own goals.

(Edited by Manfred Schieder on 9/27, 11:40pm)

"How does the nature of the USA president affect our ability to gather or recruit Objectivists? Is Trump a businessman or a showman?"

What's so fearful about it? Why shouldn't he be both? After all, every businessman must use advertising to sell what he produces, else how would potential buyers become aware of what's new on the market?

Why do I hold on to Trump for the next term? Because of what I said in my post: Because Objectivists need all the precious time they can get to spread and increase - which means advertising from person to person - the mass of adherents. That's the way things run among the human societies when it comes to products and/or ideas. We will get this precious more time as long as there's liberty to make Objectivist ideas better and more widely known. With leftwingers we're out, for the only way these know on how to "convince" consists in eliminating any adversary, which subjects the rest of the population to fear of being the next in line. Shouldn't you agree with what I just said, read history. Did Communists, Socialists, Fascists, Nazis: Lanin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim-Yong-un, Guevara, Chaves/Maduro or you name it ever proceeded any differently?

So that's why I stand by Americans voting again for Trump, out of sheer need for time. And, quite beside if you want to, he's good for business and people having jobs to keep their lifestyle. They wouldn't have it with leftwingers ruling. Look at Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Former East Germany, Russia, China and so forth. Aren't these sufficient reason?

(Edited by Manfred Schieder on 10/03, 10:37pm)