Meet Ron Johnson, the Randiest of the Ayn Rand Republicans

Paul Ryan called to turn Medicare into a voucher program, or by the massive cuts that would be required to make his numbers add up.
"[T]he reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand." –Paul Ryan in a 2005 speech.
FUSSBUDGET: How Paul Ryan captured the G.O.P.

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann employed the Rand lexicon during her 2012 presidential run. 

California Congressman John Campbell gives interns copies of Rand’s opus, Atlas Shrugged. 

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), tweets: “Still reading Atlas Shrugged—it’s quite the read.”

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul says he’s really a “Randy”. “I am a big fan of Ayn Rand. I’ve read all of her novels.”

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Rand Critiques: 

Whittaker Chambers - "Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal." 

Paul Krugman reminds us, “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”

Michael Shermer, "The Unlikeliest Cult in History The Unlikeliest Cult in History. Widely-cited article describing Objectivism as a cult. Orginally written for Skeptic magazine and reprinted in Shermer's book "Why People Believe Weird Things."