What I don't see is the ability of the Gulchers to affirm a philosophical basis for their rejection of the creeping totalitarianism. They sense it as impinging on their love of freedom but don't seem to be coherent in their objections. Philosophical understanding requires intellectual work and opinions are lazy. So there is little indication that all the chatter here represents any potential for change.

Well, just don't forget one thing, that all too many libertarians forget. External enemies do exist. Muhammad declared war against every founding element of the United States before the United States was even a glimmer in anyone's eye. Like it or not, we inherit, in the Muslim mind, the despised position of the Byzantine Empire.

Their lack of a rational philosophy is the reason. Like with Rand where the influence from a line or two in some works would turn some away from discovering rational works. Some of the many anti Rand sources that in a few sentence trash Rand are 'The Closing of the American Mind', 'The National Review', and 'The Lonely Crowd". You do not want a lot of discussion if you want to turn readers against someone. Say too much and thinking might start. At the University of Wisconsin in the early 1960s it was that she was a naive realist: end of discussion,.

Your glib statement is an array of glittering generalities. "Most of the entrepreneurs" would be millions of people. How many do you know?

I grant that you do know about Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and of course Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and a few others. I grant also that Google executive Eric Schmidt is no fan of your freedom: he is explicit about that.

On the other hand, T. J. Rodgers does not get the celebrity notice, though he does make his opinions known. He is not alone in that. Ed Snider was a serious promoter of Ayn Rand's ideas. Moreover, his story about Atlas Shrugged begins with Peter O'Malley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbPV6...

In The Invention of Enterprise, the editors and authors make the point that every society gets the entrepreneurs that it allows and encourages. In Rome, conquest brought glory. Successful businessmen bought farms, lived like landed optimates, and turned their enterprises over to freedmen and slaves. True laissez faire may be an unknown ideal, but you cannot condemn people for make the best lives they knew how. You might has well condemn them for not having cell phones.
(See my review here: http://libertarianpapers.org/article/...

The great age of railroading was interlaced with government initiatives. James J. Hill stands out. It is literally true that he sought no government favors. But the whole truth is that he benefited as a free rider on the grants and privileges given to others. Gould, Harriman, Fisk, Stanford,... Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, ... you can make heroes or villains out of any or all.

The story is then not them, but you. You are not alone in enjoying the bitter dregs of economic weltschmerz. It is a story that plays well here.

I would argue the point that the 48-49% in America that are the producers in our society absolutely knew what he was, and he has never gone above around 51% popularity. The support he has is from the leaches on society- some obvious work but are government jobs so their lack of work ethic doesn't pose a financial risk.

Faults stated, Obama was personally likable, and no known felonies before his presidency.

We can contrast the Obama positives with Hillary.

Actually, Ayn Rand already had lived in Switzerland briefly with her family before returning to Russia. She came to America for the movies, something else that was not invented in Switzerland.

A culture of entrepreneurship is not just about a lack of regulation. it is not even the legal framework of private property, though that is important. Hernando de Soto Polar made the point well in The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumph in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. Dale Halling has been saying the same things here. But necessary is not sufficient.

I am not sure if I would characterize the american populace as communists. From where I sit, it appears what they want is to use the government to take things from others and give to them. Maybe I am saying the same thing as you, but cronyism seems to be the rule of the day, and the attraction of Hildebeast.