whYNOT

I read the article. It's great. I've been witnessing this transition toward integrating Church and state for years. Back in the day, I was willing to ignore it. I considered the evil of a leftist/socialist agenda to be the greater threat to American prosperity and stability. The left-wing agenda continues to be a monstrous threat. In 1980 and 84, I cast my votes to Ronald Reagan, believing that his support from the Moral Majority would not escalate to the threat to individualism and reason that it is today. The radical Christian conservative agenda now stands as large and menacing as a rival monster, eye to eye with the mystic monster of the Left. For this reason, I have abandoned my support for nearly all Republicans who exploits Christian value voters. My rejection of Trump doesn't mean that I support Biden. I vote with my conscience, and any third party candidate that presents no threat to individual liberty is fine by me. I show up at the polls, the respectable candidates have not. The American crisis of confidence has only radicalized the semi-literate electorate, playing on their fear and other emotions. Obama was a perfect example. I think very important issues were addressed in the past four years; some of Trump's policies were helpful. Some of his suggestions, (particularly his muted criticism against revisionist history in public schools), may yet have long term positive results. But overall, the recklessness of his language and management, his open displays of intimidation, his preference for authoritarian world leaders, I think the good does not outweigh the bad. It's quite unfortunate. Some good might come from all of this. I can only wait and see.

A good essay by Journo as far as an intro into the divide. BUT, neglects to mention a rising International Socialism which has been taking the place of National Conservatism.
And as conservatism-religion has been pushed aside by the new Left, here was the cause of recent attempts by conservative thinkers to rediscover and reassert it and the nation state. The "divide" was created by the new Left, almost exclusively.
So Journo doesn't get down to the deeper malaise, imo: Activist, secularist, anti-Christian authoritarianism.  Which O-thinkers recognize as *the* false alternative but few others do.
 
https://newideal.aynrand.org/meet-the-conservative-authoritarians/
 

I trust Eiuol would have second thoughts about her deserving to be shot. That is some crazy statement.
It is immaterial if she'd have been a Black Lives Matter or Democrat supporter (say) showing her displeasure at Trump's re-election - she apparently did nothing to "deserve" being fired upon leave alone killed. 
Let's not have one moral standard for one and not the other.

Stale by now, one'd think. Anything or anyone slightly right-wards (or 'centrist') of leftism is Fascism or Fascist.
How socialists have used this ploy to great effect! For only about a century.
 

What's not easy to stomach is the leftists cum Socialists unctuously claiming the moral high ground, they have never had that right. One standard for others (Insurrection! Mobs! Riots! Anarchy!) and another for themselves ("Peaceful protests...")was permitted them by supporters and tacitly by their political opponents alike - simply because they purportedly care for 'the minorities'. Which they don't, it's a show. Find enough disaffected people, especially of minority 'tribes' to believe your sympathy and promises of personal gain, you can have a majority. And forget about individualism... The Democrats' greedy ambitions and power-hunger have never been clearer as lately, and now I think, maybe, for some it will slowly dawn what Trump was up against, what he was for, and that he'd seen through them early. Apparently, he wasn't egotistically "only out for himself" like nearly all of people I hear and read ignorantly believe. The Democrat Left was already at work dividing the nation before he came on the scene and the GOP was ineffectual to deal with that. But beautifully twisted by the despicable MSM and intelligentsia was that HE was the divider, especially racial. Which was 'the narrative' that stuck. They had four years to plan a strategy of how to grasp power back, and weren't caught napping this time.

Defiant Michigan UP cafe owner told to shut down after serving indoor diners
Since November, bars and restaurants in Michigan have been limited to carry-out service or outdoor dining in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
Who is mandating the limitation (and by what means)?
Who's rights are being violated? Is it the people who chose not to frequent this establishment for CoViD-19 concerns? Is it the owner and voluntary workers at a restaurant violating a mandate to only fulfill carry out orders?
A patient checks into a hospital and the diagnosis turns out to be CoViD-19. How did the patient acquire it? Was the patient get infected at a restaurant, a gym, a grocery store, Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner with friends and/or family, the local hardware store, the local mall while buying christmas gifts? Assume the patient was wearing a mask, as mandated by most states and counties-townships-cities-etc., and second-handedly requested by most establishments not quashed by law to allow customers to frequent.
Keep in mind that this is by no means an exhaustive list. It is only intended to illustrative of another passage that comes to mind from Atlas Shrugged:
"You propose to establish a social order based on the following tenets: that you're incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others—that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler—that you're unable to earn your living by the use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and to vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge, over the gigantic industries where you, by your own definition of your capacity, would be unable successfully to fill the job of assistant greaser." Yes, social order can come into play, but not by means of folk that harbor a vision of man as incapable of acting rationally when a new virus is discovered. 
While a majority may serve as a deciding factor in a democracy, the morally decisive response requires a knowledge of what is the right recourse. Absent that, each individual should be granted the freedom to act according to their independent judgement, providing it does not infringe on anyone else acting according to their independent judgement.

Allowed by whom? The "requirement" as you put it, is a straw man. If it were only that simple, only one's choice, such behavior is easy to follow, good hygiene and simple good manners (I've said).
You must have seen that the governments are strenuously enforcing masking and social distancing. With the threat underlying that if they so decide, we will return to a level of lock down, with large fines and possible arrests, therefore police powers. (Which has been enforced today by the South African Gvt. - drunk on power - because of slight new outbreaks at coastal vacation regions). You people didn't behave, so now the whole country must be punished.
Additionally, the social pressure to conform isn't pleasant, by those who are enshrining helpless victims, as is their favorite narrative, against the 'selfish' oppressors (The Granny killers). Those who rationally and selfishly want to live and work.
With these together, by fear of force and social intimidation/shaming, fewer people venture out, economic life is far from recovery and businesses are still failing around the world. More people are suffering further.
"Requirement"?

https://newideal.aynrand.org/its-past-time-for-a-pandemic-testing-strategy/
I had a look at Taiwan, its remarkably low infection and fatalities. Seeing that the ARI people laud the nation's "test, trace and isolate" measures and criticize America's. It turns out:
From The Lancet; Regional health; West Pacific - What we can learn from Taiwan and New Zealand. An excerpt:
"Results
 Summary of the COVID-19 status in Taiwan and New Zealand up to August 2020
Taiwan announced its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on 21 January 2020, a 50+ year old woman returning to Taiwan from her teaching job in Wuhan.
 New Zealand recorded its first case of COVID-19 on 28 February 2020, a woman in her 60 s who arrived on 26 February from Iran via Bali."
---
I'd gather that what worked easily for Taiwan's testers and tracers - with ONE identified confirmed case, this woman teacher (and certainly assuming a few others who entered testing positive after her) - and few ports of entry, hardly applies as ARI would have it, to the US, with perhaps many thousands of infected individuals having entered through (the maximum) 328 ports of entry, especially NYC.
How are thousands of people entering almost simultaneously, and transmitting Covid-19 to perhaps tens of thousands and they to hundreds of thousands more, Etc., throughout America, possibly going to be "traced"? Not to add, every individual isolated, effectively? Unreal. The comparative geographies of Taiwan's small island with few cities and the USA's, and therefore the range of unrestricted movements of the two populations, is one could one say, a -little- different too...
 

Although not quite a "sense of connection" with those, I agree it makes for an insight into their cynicism or nihilism or "ressentiment" and quite valuable for one's understanding of general trends, moral and artistic. My opinion is one needs to look at the dark side in art too. One emerges stronger and more certain for the experience I think (like one's intellectual, artistic "immune system" is enhanced from the exposure). Naturalism, that broad category, holds merits, often technical and stylistic, and at least as a foil to romantic realism. Best put, maybe, that one comes to finely discern the light from the darkness, while noting/appreciating the shades between them.
The art content and presentation by extremely capable artists or authors will usually hold several enjoyable take-aways which, if nothing else, heighten the capability to *see* (and conceptualize).
E.g. Any well-crafted novel but the most boring, naturalist, ones always has a prominent and often absorbing individual character, typifying individualism, but - he/she may be the doomed-Byronic type, having volition "in regard to consciousness, but not to existence"; or on the other Classical Romantic side, he succeeds in his ambitions but does so without an expressed reason: possessing volition "with regard to existence, but not to consciousness". Then rarely, one finds the authors and their characters who combine both elements, in greatly refreshing romanticism-heroism for one's spirit. I advise to read and view them all and find out/identify/enjoy for oneself. An art 'echo chamber' is needlessly self-constrictive and limiting.

Test, track, isolate.
What folly. At first and last impression this endeavor is out of touch with reality and with human nature. A scientific-seeming solution that may look superficially plausible and comforting but cannot be implemented, and when tried as the policy is all over, cannot be effective or efficient or rights-observing, on the grand scale.
If (only) a million in a population are tested, finding say, 20,000 to be Covid -positive, what next? Each are interviewed, presumably, to uncover their previous movements. Where did they go, who - and what - were they in close contact with for the last (say) 10 days? (Try to attempt to recall your exact movements for yourselves). And ordering all those in the first group into isolation.
Then the follow-up. Contacting all those named and places visited, testing them also, questioning, tracing their movements. And so on down the line, in radiating circles and increasing vast numbers, isolation for them also. To what end? To some degree, I estimate, the tracer-trackers are playing catch up and always a step behind the virus.
Then, the memories of people are always innocently faulty. Now, where did I go next, what was the name of that guy I met, I don't recall where she lives, was I in that shop or hairdresser that day - etc. Then, some won't be honest, he was with someone's wife, he was goofing off from work, she was at a maskless party (horrors!) and doesn't want to name names, etc..
It surely needs that one or two individuals in the transmission chain to fall between the cracks and go unrecorded, and much of the effort is in vain.
Then, how and why are all these people forced to co-operate, anyway? Why should one permit random testing, then being quizzed and interrogated - and then obediently going into self-isolation for a week or two? The very least, invasion of privacy. Worse, to even have a chance to work, this all will require police-state force and rigorously and regularly checking up on masses of people's quarantines. Since many of course will flout the isolation warning. Others will accidentally make contact with a pizza deliveryman or plumber. The spread continues.
Who foots the cost of the endless "leg work" (sure, computers and cells will be employed) and man-hours of the immense manpower needed for this impossible exercise? Rhetorical question.
Will the positive-tested not feel guilt for those they possibly infected, that individual they know (perhaps who unfortunately dies?) Similarly, will they blame those whom they discover passed the infection on to them? The psychological effects in society are not even considered when, unquestionably, any altruistic ends justify the means.
The last question: Has it worked? Just how many lives has this huge operation saved? The 'waves' evidently continue. Does anybody have a clue, and how can they be certain or be trusted?
All this providing the public with a figment of comfort, "They" are doing something! It is 'scientific', you know...
And there goes individual self-responsibility and self-ownership of one's body, surrendering that to authority figures.

This graph may be out of date, it is certain those percentages have fallen further - but what it illustrates is just who are being sacrificed to whom. I.e.: The top half to the bottom half of people.
Very roughly, and there are always the outlier exceptions among the very young who succumb and some very old who will shrug off the infection (I suppose for one, that individual immune systems are highly variable) - but, simplistically - up until age 59, everybody should be out and about, fearlessly living their active lives. Others older can or should be more circumspect, according to their own experiences with their individual health.
(And for the pre-60's the fatality rate is no worse than the normal flu. Which in the US takes the lives of about 60,000 annually. Consider that number accruing for the last decade. About half a million died. A respectable number. Did anybody suggest a "lock down" for the flu season? Although again, hygienic and other precautions would be a good idea for those older who haven't been vaccinated.)

I did a double-take on that one, too

So the DNC/ Biden persuaded a majority of voters to view their policies as good ? A majority of American voters back the Democrat Party platform?
Biden as a leader articulated a cohesive enough argument to persuade a majority? The campaign had no advantage or assistance to their efforts in formulating the presentation and dissemination  of their policies that Trump’s campaign did not enjoy to the same extent?
The main media and social media platforms acted independently and covered the candidates in equitable fashion. Seeing or pointing out bias in treatment to the respective campaigns is fringe thinking ? 
Or is the argument that media plays a negligible role in affecting public opinion?
Covid coverage, riot coverage none of it was slanted and or had little effect? 

This needs a comment. I have never accepted the false, emotionalist, alternative which has dogged the Trump presidency. Why must I "like" him - or hate him? How about I approve of, in general and in essence, what he did and tried to do for the USA and for freedom lovers everywhere? Some time prior to Trump's arrival I became aware of some anti-American, anti-individualist nastiness stirring in the US. That he hated its proponents, with "malice", as was remarked, is simply justice to them.
Personalities are irrelevant. It's not as if I want to take him home to meet the folks.
That's a reminder of the infamous words by Journo: "As an expert in Ayn Rand's philosophy I can state that she would have detested Donald Trump".
Wow.
How shallow does he think Rand was, I ask? That she would assess the president on her feelings, aesthetic and otherwise, like he has done?
Taken as a whole, her entire philosophy, her never to be equalled comprehensive grasp of reality and contexts, her often accuracy of a person's inner character, her admiration for America and its productivity, her insight into the American sense of life, her disgust with altruism and socialism, and ask yourself honestly, Elan: whom do you think Rand would have voted for?

This election was the triumph of aesthetic feelings around a personality ABOVE reason and real values. The media-fed "image" of a leader has counted to a majority of voters (and mainstream Objectivists, which leaves me aghast) above his effectiveness at opposing self-sacrifice and establishing American independence. d_w, mark this point, there are those there in majority and many abroad who want to perpetuate the customary altruist USA and were terrified that it may end. That's the basis of Trump hatred. Here is where "many sense something is a amiss and can't put their finger on it", as you say. But Objectivists are well versed in altruism, so should know. They know too that Rand projected it as America's downfall. I didn't hear them expound in this vein. Trump would have understood self- sacrifice instantly.
This was a while coming, but we've passed the point to where children outnumber the grown-ups. Feelings over facts, and we must henceforth be forced to feel what they feel. Next, logically, the Nanny State - at minimum, after which who knows how far to the Left you will go. The Dems who've sold their soul to the lowest bidder will have to reward the shaky coalition of all their new bed partners, from the Greens to the far out socialists/communists.
Peace overseas and prosperity at home, one would believe the objective of any rational country, and in the offing a year ago has been abandoned by half of Americans - for what? The 2nd handedness of looking good to others and of feeling morally sanctimonious?

Tony, this horse we children would ride out in the country belonged to that man I spoke of who went to school only through the third grade. He was the second husband of our mother. He was a cattle rancher; paratrooper and aircraft mechanic in North Africa and Italy during WWII; he knew his Catholic catechism. He read newspapers and did his own thinking. He did not need any advice in discerning a con man or discerning human depravity or goodness or in determining who would get his vote. Neither did the children on that horse in their adulthood.

I think one can get fixated on one word, when it's clear Rand assumed her readers recognize that "interests" covers a wide gamut.
Take: Needs, wants, ambitions, goals, ideas, actions, purpose, work, career, love life, friends, pastimes, financial profits, appreciation of art - and "self-interest", itself. And substitute any one for "interests" in her statement.
They all equally fit.
 

As much as there exists Capitalism in the US by laissez-faire standards, the economic choice is this:
https://trishintel.com/trish-this-election-is-a-simple-choice-capitalism-vs-socialism/

I think this is the hold up because purpose is a subspecies of standard (in a certain context). Standard and Purpose, both give guidance. (but with Rand the primary difference seems to be that one is abstract, the other concrete)
The difference between “standard” and “purpose” in this context is as follows: a “standard” is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man’s choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. “That which is required for the survival of man qua man” is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose—the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being—belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own.
Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man—in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.

Not to get hung up on ice cream flavors or other sense-perception tastes, but having such preferences for this over that (or that, not at all) has an objective base when one pays it mind, I think. Saying this, because many a time we hear that these are "subjective" tastes and values. One finds out from experience that strawberry is tastier for you than chocolate, or 'agrees' with you better. This might be a minor variation in the arrangement of taste buds specific to you or a digestive system that reacts to chocolate, for all I can tell. (Then if strawberry isn't available, your taste hierarchy might point to the next flavor in line. The category "ice cream" has pleasure-value over the flavor). The major point imo being that this taste and its enjoyment likely has a source in your biological nature and a corresponding value - and that you know it - therefore, is objective and "personal" - not a contradiction. Forcing yourself to eat carrots you heartily dislike over an ice cream treat, that could be subjective and a value-sacrifice (if you weren't starving). Up the line in magnitude to where it really counts, the greater values in your rational, self-full hierarchy maintain their order also, since "you know" them (conceptually) too and wouldn't sacrifice a higher value to a lesser one.

What you observe here are "free will" and the "man made".  These are somewhat different from the primacy of consciousness.
The relationship between existence and consciousness in the same thing is hierarchical.  Your consciousness is possible due to and indeed arose from existence.  You weren't, then you were (now you are) and your consciousness is, but one day you simply won't be.  Technically, the existence of you, in all your complexity, does not at once "cause" you to be conscious... you ARE conscious because of your identity... the whole nature of the complexity of you... things are their attributes after all.  Electron's do not have charge because of existence causes them to be so, electrons simply exist AND ARE negatively charged.  Your conscious existence has specific requirements in reality, i.e. in the "natural" world from which you consist, which were not met, prior to your being conscious... and will not be met... after you pass.
The reverse, i.e. a disembodied consciousness, deciding it needed something to be conscious of, giving birth to existence, to one day in the far future dissolving it ... would be the erroneous idea of the primacy of consciousness. 
 
Consciousness does play an interactive and hence causative role in the world- it would have to since, far from being cut-off from it...  it is embedded and constituent here fully of and by the natural world... a natural and real identity as absolute as anything else in existence.   As such, free-will and the man made are not counterexamples of the primacy of existence they are examples of it.. in a particular structural and functioning form.

If one defined subjective as "of and due to and dependent upon the perceiving subject's consciousness", does that hold? Naturally there are physical, biological differences among all brains as among all bodies, but consciousness is consciousness. If "subjective" were accepted in the colloquial meaning (as it usually is): loosely as "variably specific to each person" - I'd agree. The proper one - opposed to objectivity - has to be maintained by O'ists, though. Therefore the careful distinction between "personal" and subjective (that Rand made some times). Otherwise, great. There is an identifiable confluence between a (personal) organic brain, psychology, consciousness, the rational ethics, honesty, self-esteem, deserved pleasure ... and chosen, objective, values.
The "brain's wiring" and neuroplasticity is greatly absorbing, here and in the wider context. Neuroscience, meet free will. (Hard to fathom why neuro-scientists I read of are philosophically strong determinists). Practice makes perfect and "you'll get very, very good at it". The "muscle memory" of virtues laid down in neural pathways by conviction and repetition.

As a preliminary what I find as interesting here is an accent on motivation rather than consequence.
Which brings up a subtle issue.. are you more interested in asking whether the action of a person (while making a choice) is moral or not or in determining whether the choice presented is a moral one or not?  There is the question of "being good" but also there is the question of "what IS the good".
I think in terms of "traditional" subjective philosophies about morality, the motivation of a person, their subjective intent to be moral "as such", i.e. to do what they think is their duty, is more important than any fact of reality, whereas a philosophy whose purpose for morality (which is to act a  guide for a person) is flourishing of that individual, holds that such intentions, no matter how honestly held, cannot be absolutely paramount.   Again, we can label a person acting as moral or not (being good) separately from whether the act itself is moral or not (what constitutes the good).
Of course individuals are fallible, so there is no contradiction, if one observes a person acting morally (with the intent to act rationally, in view of reality, for their own flourishing) but nonetheless performing acts, due to some error of knowledge or logic, which are themselves "immoral" in the sense that they are inimical to life.
 
Thinking in terms of the primacy of existence (rather than consciousness), "the good" is foundational, defining and making "being good" possible.
 
Thoughts
As for ice cream on a random night, it was meant to act as a single non-consequential decision... perhaps a decision re. ice cream have consequences which are too delicious to act as such. 
As for the issues which your question implies, I would add the following: 
Psychological flourishing is an essential aspect of flourishing, and one aspect of psychology is pleasure, another is self-awareness or introspection of your own actions... your own successes and failures as authored by your choices... and self-esteem is also seen as one of three cardinal values, in Rand's view.  So ice cream is never really just ice cream... it's health, and psychology, self-esteem etc.  We must not forget however, that some random isolated things ... are forgotten... and in some instances, some things are of so little consequence that they might well have not even happened.  Perhaps ice cream is too tasty to fit into such a category...
 
I agree with you, but I might label things differently.
In the ladder of abstraction, I would identify the response you have to ice cream as an objective value, psychological pleasure is a value and it results from a certain flavor, but I would "characterize" your brain's wiring for that flavor as subjective or idiosyncratic.  In this way of looking at things, your favorite "flavor" is not so much an objective value to you, so much as the pleasure which results from your subjective tastes, is an objective psychological value to you. 
In such a way of speaking, your objective values (pleasurable tasting food being a psychological value) would not change even if your subjective tastes did change.
 
 
I tend to think that the value in doing the things one enjoys, is not "in the things" one does, but is "in the pleasure" one experiences doing them.  So perhaps "ice cream" as such is too narrow and concrete... what is of value is the pleasure, and the knowledge that it was earned honestly (assuming you paid for it), so that the pleasure validates your existence and confirms you are fit to live and flourish in reality. 

Jonathan, A hierarchy of values you've seen indicates that many objective values are of lower/higher value "significance" in the greater scheme of things to one (for whom his/her life and its entirety is the supreme, objective-value significance).  Why then to declare a cut-off point, between: this is a moral choice, that is non-moral? I can see no advantage and only downsides. These minimally important things are what sometimes give our simplest rewards in anticipation, enjoyment, a sense of well -being. We could see this input as the maintenance and sustenance of a huge range of material values and human values, for the 'spiritual' values they repay us with.
The choices then, I think, are all "moral" -  pertain to a rational morality. What varies tremendously is the discovered values, which will have most-more-lesser-neutral significance, which one best identifies in order to best evaluate. In effect, this is one's precious life, nothing that touches on it passes muster and evaluation.

Values, proportionate to time - a life's duration (i.e. "long term"):
"Since a value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep, and the amount of possible action is limited by the duration of one’s lifespan, it is a part of one’s life that one invests in everything one values. The years, months, days or hours of thought, of interest, of action devoted to a value are the currency with which one pays for the enjoyment one receives from it".
 
“Concepts of Consciousness", AR