The biggest, and most valid, arguments against trump from objectivists seems to me to be that he will damage capitalism's reputation by doing crony type things and people blaming what he does on the fact that he is a "Capitalist".

Concur & +1

exactly. people arent born objectivist 100%. They are born more like 0% objectivist, being completely dependent and just expecting everything to be done for them.

I dont think people are 100% objectivist in their thinking, or 0%. The higher the percentage, the better off we all are. If we estimate Trump at 50% and Obama at 3%, I will take the 50% and try and encourage him to get to 60%. Obama is a lost cause, as was crooked Hillary or Sanders

The biggest danger at this point in time is the explosion of technology in giving government effective ways to control people. I definitely dont like the war on guns, and the NSA approach to knowing everything about me. There needs to be remedies to excessive government, and at least before Trump I was getting nervous that there werent any left.

I am definitely one of the deplorables and I hope he can thread his way through the swamp to free us of the shackles of statism.

In addition, a total collapse wont just happen. It will be accompanied by a lot of clawing and scratching on the way down, and it would take a long time.

Once totally collapsed, it will also take a long time to recover.

Both of those things would exceed my remaining lifetime and make living not very good during the time I have left.

If I was going to live forever, I wou want it all.
Seeing as though thats not going to happen, I will accept as objectivist a society as I can get.

Absolutely!

True. It is important now to point out to people that Trump is not an Objectivist. I am still hopeful we will move slowly in the right direction.

Hello richrobinson.
Me too. I am doing well thank's. I hope all is well with you and yours.
Happy Holidays,
O.A.

Rich: What many "Objectivists" forget, is that philosophy - especially rational Objectivist philosophy, is for the purpose of happiness. Politics is but the last "component." The first three, metaphysics, epistemology, and most importantly, morality, are the first three.

Understanding of THAT context, leads to the answers of your own question(s).

Action today is always to move the context toward what is correct in principle. One holds the principles as absolutes and acts contextually and morally.

Yes. If things fall apart, we revert to the norms of human history.

We have no choice; we won't get much.
Trump and some cabinet members are being portrayed in the media as "Objectivists"; they are far from it, but their values might possibly yield some good results. Unfortunately, the more they fail, the more it appears as a black mark on the philosophy.

Believe it or not, me dino is not into destruction.
I do not at all anticipate that a glorious John Galt will arise from the ashes of a socioeconomic collapse.
More likely it would be someone like the current TV villain in The Walking Dead who uses homicidal terror to mooch off others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negan
Maybe more likely, no matter if progressive policies DID bring the USA down, an individual or a group of Bolshevik Bernies would arise to successfully pied pipe for a doubling down on control freak fascist socialism if not communism.
However it works out, the only phoenix to arise from such ashes won't be about the ringing of freedom.

I agree with you, one should take the victories when you can get them. Looking at Trump's cabinet picks, he looks far greater than I had hoped. To answer your question, it seems to me the majority (not just some) of the Objectivists want it all or nothing. I see it as suffering from Nirvana Fallacy = comparing some utopian ideal with the real world. Actually, it may be worse because most of the Objectivists fight among themselves as to what the utopian ideal is and the more dogmatic among us then characterize any disagreement with their own viewpoint as immoral, in the tradition of each Inquisitor defining heresy and then persecuting as he saw fit.

Great points Gary. Reagan made some positive moves and in retrospect it amazes me how fast we allowed everything to be undone. Have to keep our eyes on the prize at all times.

It's hard to argue with that Chad. A lot has to be done and I am still hopeful that Trump will be a major improvement over a Hillary/Obama Presidency.

Eventually, we want all, BUT movement in a positive direction is good. The problem is that some positive movement is often misinterpreted as being more than it really is. The direction is important, but a sustained trajectory is critical to attaining the ultimate goal of a truly free society. To paraphrase Rand, a mixture of food and poison will still kill you, just more slowly. Trump is far from perfect and I suspect that we will all be pulling our hair out over some of his moves; however, his presidency offers us an opportunity to educate those not yet too-far-gone to the benefits of capitalism. No one is perfect; hell, even Rand had issues. The best you can do is the best you can do. Accept positive moves and do as much as you can to correct the poor ones; many of them are errors of ignorance by well meaning people and those can be corrected when identified.

Donald Trump is not a move to Objectivism. He has used legal polemics to take property from others to benefit himself. He has supported the Clintons in the past when their socialist programs benefited him. He hasn't been sworn in yet and is already breaking his promises to repeal the ACA in its entirety, build a fence, prosecute the Clintons, etc. He is like every other politician who will say what he thinks the electorate wants to hear with no intention of delivering anything but socialism. There are a million chains binding us and his broken promise to undo one is not heartening nor inspiring that anything will come of his administration. Yet what I hear most often is, 'let's wait to see what happens.' When my communist daughter voted for Obama I told her he would not end the war, 8 years later it has not been ended but expanded into other countries and all I hear are excuses for his behavior. I expect the same for Trump, he will not deliver on his promises and all I will hear will be excuses about how he really is for freedom he just is not able to accomplish anything because . . . . . it is not his fault.

He is a wild card at this point but I knew Hillary was a disaster. I'll take any steps in the right direction.

I'd rather be standing ground with Trump than pressing forward towards collapse with Hillary. Doesn't mean we're headed in the right direction, however, and despite all the Trump fanatics, I am skeptical that he's going to lead the nation back to more solid economic and philosophical footing. I'm going to wait until he's been in office that first 100 days before I pass too much judgment, however.

yes.

"is what a total collapse would lead to"
Not only that, things are amazingly good right now. Many people on earth understand the concept of their rights, that they're intrinsic, that they flow from them to the state not the other way around, and they expect their rights to be somewhat respected. People solve their problems with courts rather than violence, and the very concept of having a duel of some sort is now seen as low-class behavior. People who indulge in the flood-myth fantasy ignore how good we have it. We should build on what we have. We should be able to say our society respects personality liberty greatly without that being seen as condoning our imperfections. It's like we should be able to say spousal abuse or any other problem is way down compared to human history without that being seen as condoning the problem in its current form.

Very well said coaldigger!