I’ve never understood why Rand is seen as so influential and a lightning rod. Then again I’ve never read her books.
Ever hear of Alan Greenspan or Paul Ryan? She’s basically an extreme, unrepentant form of Gordon Gecko. And her sci-fi is meh at best.
The first two seem like reasonable enough people. All I know about Gordon is that he is greedy and/or a lizard. Don’t recall whether I knew Rand wrote sci-fi. The Canadian is entirely new to me.