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Conspiracy theorist.

Lots of material about the debate or, more broadly, about the issues between them: albert ellis nathaniel branden debate - Search (bing.com) albert ellis nathaniel branden debate - Google Search

His "principle" is popularity. His position is always what is going to make him look "big".

"Buffoon"? Who cares how he comes across - and although of another nationality, I care very much about America's future direction and particularly its moral stance. When Trump says of something, "That's a bad deal!" - what does that say? A bad deal is surely when you get less out of something than what you've put in. In other words, losing a greater value for a lesser; In short, self-sacrificial altruism. Why, I can't understand, has this central aspect never been picked up (that I've seen) by Objectivists? For whatever his (very likely), businesslike pragmatism, your president has one overall principle, and that's to pull back the USA from further descent into its dutiful sacrificial altruism, which all other nations have taken as 'a given' for so long. Make no bones about it, beneath the enraged/scornful opposition (we get here too from our self-righteous Left-liberals) they ~know~ what's going on. No one will mention, or always explicitly understand, the basic ideology at stake, but this unbelievable, unceasing opposition to Trump, especially the hatred seen from the loathsome CNN, can't be taken any other way. It shows me their fear, and that a threat to their altruism is implicit in whatever they're doing. Like I say, what do I care about what he says, or acts like. We are feeling his shakeup in many places in the world, all to the better.

In other words, Trump has that in common with the people Binswanger used as examples in his essay that you linked. But those what are called "normal people", non-intellectual ordinary Americans whom we know Rand was a great fan of because of their "sense of life" as she put it. Rand was frustrated by America's non-intellectuality but she didn't disapprove of the country because of it. Trump as president is like the common man as president, and her opinions of the common (American) man are probably the most relevant to Trump. I haven't seen much commentary on Trump's sense of life, but that is really what got him elected. His optimism, his vivaciousness, his high energy, his guilt free enjoyment of life and his immensely entertaining Twitter taunts all make him tremendously appealing. But these are non-intellectual factors and incomprehensible to someone committed to rationalism as a professional duty. That would be many ARI people and often Binswanger.

Alright, I'm going to riff this piece, Mystery Science Theater 3000 style. The piece is enough of a joke, might as well joke about it. Except for Odd Thomas, and the ARI. lol Well obviously, Trump loves Russia and Rand was from Russia. Makes total sense to the fake news mindset. Whole, as in "all." Quite a wager considering that Trump agrees with Objectivism on quite a few key political goals... preserving the 2A, repealing regulations, repealing Obamacare, standing up to the Global Warming fraud, destroying radical Islam instead of making excuses for it, etc. So what does our prophetess have to say exactly, Mr. Ghate? She obviously didn't foresee the rise of the Internet. Except for Ron Paul, a far more intellectual and principled candidate than Trump, which the ARI opposed because... uh, why exactly? A limit which apparently led for her to vote for Nixon, a far worse candidate than Trump, over McGovern, a far better candidate than Hillary. and who channel a dead woman... oh wait, that's the ARI. Yes, the first candidate in 30 years to not thank God in his acceptance speech, and who says that he has "nothing to be forgiven for" is a "mystic." He might as well be a closet atheist who pays lip-service to religion because politics and votes. No, what's illuminating is your attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole. You mean like government-sanctioned torture, or the Waco raid? That sort of justice? None of which are evident in Trump's decades of honest business dealings, Mr. Ghate would assert. If he had been a Madoff-like crook, surely evidence for it would have arisen by now. Apparently calling out fake news represents "disdain for the truth." Ah, Anderson Cooper, a bastion of journalistic integrity. Because he's not a liar. Apparently YouTube viewers don't count. Apparently respect for women involves denying one's own sexuality and the beauty of the female form. Ghate would have us equate spur-of-the-moment tweets with Trump's considered opinion. No, it's because none of the things you just mentioned were lies. Actually it captures basic marketing principles. The defenders of capitalism sure don't know much about how business works. Says the ARI, an organization which hired Carl Barney, former Scientology church owner and current college swindler, and takes his dirty money. Obviously they would assert that they only hired him because people can change. Well then, we had objective evidence that Trump no longer desired to be part of the swamp and only had to be in order to run his business effectively. Apparently concepts like slogans and the process for choosing them to reach mass appeal are alien to the ARI. No wonder there are so few objectivists. And apparently unless you constantly repeat those things, your own inherent goodness means nothing. "It's true because I want it to be true" actually perfectly captures the tone of this hit piece. I'd rather have a man who acts moral but never talks about it, than a man who never acts moral but preaches how moral he is. Fine people want to preserve their history for the sake of remembering, not tear it down for the sake of nothing. Not every person defending the confederate statue at that rally was a neo-Nazi. No other president actually stood up to North Korea and forced China to play nice. I'd call that quite an accomplishment. In addition to the hundreds of regulations that Trump has repealed. If Ghate and Brook had their way, Hillary would be president and these would still be on the books. Don't forget about Jesus and Buddha while you're making your fake list of people who Trump never said that he's better than. Or, you know, it was a joke. Yes, how dare he be loyal to America first instead of globalists. I guess that Trump's business achievements count for nothing. As opposed to the objective thing to do, which would be to hire men who would betray him. As it should be, given Comey's lack of fidelity to justice in the case of Clinton. What you're hearing is patriotism towards America, not tribalism. I know, it's hard to recognize for a member of an organization like the ARI that puts Israel above America. And Hillary apparently would've played no part in this drift. Political hucksters rely on strawmen, such as saying that Trump blamed "all" the country's problems on any particular group. By this logic we should never elect a county sheriff who pledges to crack down on criminals. That would be tribalism, apparently. You mean like Hillary calling half the country "deplorables?" Oh look, a nugget of truth! You're forgetting some qualifying adjectives. Illegal immigrants, dishonest journalists, globalist "free" traders, and corrupt elites. Trump opposed none of those things intrinsically. Sales should be soaring, but the ARI fails at marketing so they're not. With funny names like Floyd Ferris, Wesely Mouch, and Onkar Ghate. You mean like how Leonard Peikoff squandered Ayn Rand's intellectual heritage? That sort of progeny? I'd trust a snake oil salesman like Alex Jones before I'd trust Anderson Cooper or wherever Mr. Ghate gets his "news." And by letting in the entire Third World into America all at once. She also advocated that, apparently. America to Israel, America to globalists... just kidding, he doesn't say that. So this is what makes you happy? Writing baseless schlock about the president? What about the Convention of States? Oh wait, the ARI hates states' rights. I mean, I think that she would have said that too, but not in the way that you mean. After all that bloviating, this is the best you could come up with that Rand might have said?

This is the key point. I should have used the term individual rights to stay within the established jargon for Objectivist discourse on rights. And yes i do stress the "formal". Rights are a principle from Objectivist ethics. The concept of rights is most often used in a political and legal context, but it should not be forgotten that rights are an ethical principle. You say rights are primarily legal (perhaps because of usage?), I would say rights are essentially ethical because of the epistemological derivation and justification. I agree that rights are about action within a social context. "Social context" is not equivalent to "legal context". It is wrong to obtain values by lying, but not every lie can be made illegal. The reason for that is law ought to have strict requirements for objectivity. A man might maintain multiple girlfriends by lying, girlfriends who would not agree to be one of a harem if they knew of the others. A man may not maintain multiple wives by lying because there is an explicit legal agreement of monogamy in marriage. In the first example, who is a girlfriend or not and who is regarded as a girlfriend or not and even what it means to be a girlfriend are all subjective mental states of the participants. The law cannot sort out what should be done in this case because there are no objective facts to work with. The law can work in a case of multiple marriages because the status and obligations of the participants are objective. This is an example where ethics can say what is right based on rights but the law must remain silent. The range of situations and contexts which are amenable to legal rulings on rights is necessarily less than the range over which ethical judgements can be made based on rights. This is because of the more stringent requirement of objectivity for a legal context, and also because legal systems have jurisdictions, defined finite geographic regions of power and of citizenship. With respect to warrants, they are a procedural limitation on law enforcement actions with the goal of protecting rights. Warrants are not themselves rights in any ethical sense. It is necessarily valid that different procedures may apply to citizens and non-citizens if the idea of citizenship and jurisdiction means anything at all because in a reduction-to-concretes sense those differences are what it means to be a citizen or not.

There are 30 million people here illegally, probably more. Not even Crackpot Kim could hope to muster up such an army. While not every member of this "army" takes welfare, commits crimes, brings disease, or refuses to assimilate and learn English, a huge number of them (millions) do. Would you agree that criminals, welfare parasites, diseased people, and people who will not learn English do not belong in this country? Considering that in Mexico, the government runs ads on the streets encouraging people to come to America, I would consider that very good evidence of an invasion. Mexico does not enforce their side of the border, in fact they even offer legal assistance to people who are going through deportation procedures. The wall will help us determine who is a threat, and who is not. It will force them to only use the gates. Otherwise they'll just swim the Rio Grande or cross the desert and we have no idea who they are. Mexico is literally at war with cartels, and there is no way to stop the cartels from spreading here. Which they have. Individuals of this country, not individuals who are citizens of Mexico. If the proper role of government is to protect the rights of individuals of any country, why not invade Mexico and force their government to provide basic human rights to their citizens instead of being a narco-terrorist state? Because most of you listen to the so-called Ayn Rand Institute and its Ayatollahs, Brook and Peikoff, without thinking for yourself. Ayn Rand herself never advocated for unlimited Third World immigration. Why? Because it is not in America's national self-interest for its people to be overwhelmed and replaced by people from the Third World who Ayn Rand called "savages." I'll pimp HandyHandle's website here because he says it far better than I could... http://ariwatch.com/AynRandOnImmigration.htm

I voted for him just to prevent the socialist disaster that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been. His stances on the campaign trail and what he has actually done in office are incongruous in many respects. The Syria strike was a big disappointment, as are many of his appointees' neocon blustering against Russia. It is still too early to say what ultimate impact he will have, however his biggest accomplishment thus far is appointing Justice Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Hillary would've given us another Ginsburg. Then you could've kissed goodbye to the Second Amendment. Trump has also stepped up border enforcement, and illegal crossings are down. The proper, objective role of government is to protect the homeland from invasion. You can't do that without border enforcement. We are being invaded by criminals, thugs, and welfare parasites and if the only legislative accomplishment that he gets done is building the wall, then it will be worth it.

His Twitter account suggests otherwise.

Well, no. There is no evidence that there is any invasion of by criminals, thugs, or welfare parasites. That's just a Trump belief, not a fact. Invasion applies to warfare or coordinated attack. That some illegal immigrants commit crimes is not good evidence of an invasion. Besides, the proper role of government is to protect the rights of individuals. If invasion occurs, there needs to be evidence that those invaders are violating rights. It's not really defense without a plan to improve identifying threats. This is what most of us would say here I suspect.