Does this mean in a society that demands everyone be equal, you can't make idiots into geniuses but you can turn geniuses into idiots? I think it's working.

What is different now as compared to other times in history is that the looters are actively encouraging moochers from other countries to come in like grasshoppers.

If you watch some of her interviews (Mike Wallace, Tom Snyder et. el.) you see some of the first blatant and public form of cancel culture.
Yet Ayn saw right through their games and refused to be cowered.
Instead, she made them try and defend their indefensible positions.
The visceral reaction of the later (1980's) audiences made it clear has day, cognitive dissonance had become the order of the day.
Her work of fiction was becoming reality before her eyes.

The idea of a society is that if people can respect each other and each work to make things better, ALL BOATS RISE.

In today's society, I have my doubts that there is a lot to be gained by interacting with other people who act irrationally.

Ayn Rand had at least one thing really right. The only way people can get along is if they each respect the human nature of others, and the way that is shown in economic terms is CAPITALISM

Depending on where they work theses days, guys who say they can't get pregnant because they lack a female uterus can actually lose their jobs.
A woman who BuyMe appointed a Supreme Court justice said when interviewed under oath that she does not know what a woman is.
And that is only a small part of the nonsense endured by those subjected to the Thought Police slaves who have willingly burdened themselves with what I've come to call the oppression that is the Yoke of the Woke
Me dino now about to turn 77 never thought I'd live to behold such "brazenly flaunted irrationality."
And I've read Ayn Rand's works. I just thought stupid would not get so blatantly stupid.

As a high school teacher I observe this daily.

look around and pounder her words.

“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”

The troubling part -- those who choose to avoid reality leave the bills for the consequences to others.
There is a nearly complete lack of accountability.
This has gone on for so long, that the reality avoiders find that they have a limitless supply of blank checks.
The flood of disasters that they have created needs to enter their front doors and physically make them aware of their failures.
The more troubling part -- these people are sociopaths -- they neither own nor learn from their mistakes.

I know that we like to say NIFO (Nuke It From Orbit) -- and Drain the Swamp -- but I think that in order to see real change, for the better, individual cancer tumors need to be identified and deleted.

when everyone is truly equal...
When do the Asylum Inmates get their turn to run the government?

Asking for a Moron who believes "Communism has never been done PROPERLY..."

That growing flood is now a tsunami of blind self destruction. The world will drown in mindlessness. Find your own high ground and fight for it with your life.

As true today as ever

Still true! What's the context of her observation?