The Great Objectivist Strike is a parody of how lobbyists and political shills style themselves as “objectivists” (followers of Ayn Rand’s philosophy) even though they are exactly the types of parasites she condemns. This story is the second of three about one of these shills, James Schuyler Hamilton Shively III (aka Shively), and how his neo-conservative values get undermined by his love for the progressive beauty Fallopia Rosario Perez.
This story is dedicated to my dear friend John Duffy (recently passed) who coined the word “shively” to describe people like this story’s protagonist.
Start
There is a crowd of liberal protestors outside the entrance to the Objectivist Club. I use the adjective liberal advisedly. There are no rough union enforcers or wild-eyed socialists, just a small crowd of young, beautiful college women who want the world to know that libertarian industrialists don’t care about environmental justice. There are a few bearded vegetarian men as well, but these are wan to the point of invisibility.
I carefully push through a scrum of protestors and enter into the smoke-filled club feeling dispirited. I like being a man and doing the things men do like drinking booze, smoking cigars, shooting guns and telling raunchy jokes. There would be plenty of that tonight at the Third Annual Meeting of the Georgetown Chapter of the Objectivist Club. In fact a mono-culture of it. But as a young, single male, a boy looking for girls, I can’t help but feel that the real party is behind me, at the protest. The situation reminds me of what my Dad always says, “Like it or not, son, hot women have power because men want to be with them. I’ve seen Navy Seals turned into Communists by a toned ass and shapely legs.” He was cautioning me against sirens like Jane Fonda, who we all know nearly destroyed America when she visited Hanoi in 1972. Best to not even think about Emma Watson, whose influence is unmooring the very foundations of patriarchy as I speak.
I glance one last time over my shoulder. In that lingering moment I catch the eye of an Hispanic beauty. She has lush, kinky black hair that had been tightly tied back in an attempt to mimic severity. Severe she could never be – or at least not for long – because of her bright brown eyes, large, unfiltered smile and lithe, agile body, which moved with modest rhythms. As she leads a chant I cast her a smile, attempting to channel Cesar Chavez, Che Guevera or at very least Bill Gates. I fear my smile is weighted down by wistfulness, so it falls to the ground uncaught. The beauty looks away.
You rightly may ask, ‘why I would attend an Objectivist celebration at all?’. My answer is simple. Work. To advance your career in what Republicans call public service you need to reach out to hawks, nativists, fundamentalists and libertarians. These people are part of my milieu, we breath the same air, swim in the same swamp, one big happy rent-seeking family. I personally don’t give a hoot about the philosophy of Ayn Rand, but you can’t do better than an Objectivist party for Republican networking.
The Objectivist Club’s carved oak doors close behind me with a thud. I made a bee-line for the bar, cutting through a grey-scale rainbow of white men and dark suits. I am too sober to engage in conversation, so while I wait to be served I listen to the conversations around me. To my right, an intense congressional intern flourishes a copy of The Fountainhead, while exhorting his buddies to dynamite a housing project.1 Metaphorically dynamite, I mean, by withdrawing federal funding. Not with actual dynamite, the way that Ayn Rand hero did. To my left, a foreign policy wonk is holding forth on the hotness gap. I can’t determine whether he is making a sexual or military joke (words like penetration figured prominently). I don’t particularly care. There is nothing here for me. With a tumbler of Maker’s Mark in hand, I began to mingle.
I am relieved by the sight of a man wearing a green, swallow-tailed jacket and white top-hat. It is my crony, Laurence de Ponce-Nez, who is engaged in conversation with a group of conservative notables. Ponce is an excellent companion at these events because he knows everyone; I am pleased to join his group.
The first luminary he introduces me to is this turtle-headed man named Mitch McConnell, who you may know as the Senate Majority leader.
McConnell looks like he had put his torso on upside down, resulting in his anus being where you’d expect to find his puckered mouth. The outcome is much as expected – lilting words flow from his mouth like brown effluent. Even though my father is friendly with McConnell because of a shared interest in corrupting the judiciary, and Ponce’s family does shipping business with McConnell’s wife, we skirt that conversation.
Moving on, we immediately encounter a prominent gambling magnate who looked like Jabba the Hutt, except he had eels for lips. The magnate is handing out stacks of money as if hawking flyers for a comedy show in the Village. The Shively’s have feudal values, so profiteering from war is fine. However, we’re High Church, with a smattering of Puritan and Catholic, so disapprove of gambling. I shy away. Ponce concurs: he places his arm around my shoulder and guides me toward a man he introduces as the Milwaukee County Commissioner. The man introduces himself as Scoot. He has the mean-nothing-to-everyman demeanor you see in professional politicians. And a rodent-like ability to gnaw into conversations, as I learn to my distress moments later.
Scoot’s wife is charming. She introduces herself as Antoinette, which I think is an excellent name for a Republican wife: it lets you know without asking where she stands on ‘let them eat cake’ issues. I compliment her many branded accessories; she graciously reciprocates to me about mine. I particularly liked the delicate way she raises her right pinky while she devours the crustless white-bread sandwiches the Club is passing off as appetizers.
I am rescued from further conversation with Milwaukee’s finest by an unshaven man with pale green skin and bulging fanatical eyes. I say ‘I’ not ‘we’ because Ponce abandoned me the moment he saw this seedy sock-puppet of a man approach. His name is Grover and he doesn’t drink, so I assumed his name-sake is the muppet rather than the Bourbon Democrat (Grover Cleveland). He is one of those tax pledge fellows. A crazy profession to people of my class, whose fortunes have been so greatly enhanced by manipulating government contracts in the pursuit of rent.
The last two members of our group were Rimbaugh (no relation) and some pundit named O’Really. They were having a shouting match. Or perhaps shouting was how they normally communicated. Its doesn’t matter because their bellows are of no consequence. Sadly – at least for those who abhor tranquility – the discussion between the two ends neither in tears nor bloodshed. Instead, the two pundits are shussed into silence by usherettes.
It is time for Congressman Ryan to give the keynote speech.
Ryan speaks briefly but passionlessly about paying back our donors by destroying the federal government’s tax base. This theme plays well to the libertarian businessmen who are scattered throughout the crowd, less so to the swamp who are in the majority. I order a double Manhattan and rock on my heels impatiently. As with any successful politician, Ryan never stops campaigning; he never lets down his guard. In this context it is impossible not to be annoyed. This isn’t a crowd looking for reasons to cut social security; there is no need to feed us bullshit disguised as red meat.
Ryan sits down to distracted murmuring and light applause, the thinness of which is awkwardly enhanced by three pretty and enthusiastic spokes-models (publicists?) who holler and stamp their feet. The day is saved when a few very drunken Objectivists started lewdly cat-calling the spokes-models, which allows Ryan to pretend to save face by making a bee-line with his entourage to a smoky back room.
The next conversational moment I flub without a second thought.
I can only warn, not explain or understand, that no amount of booze and good company will stop libertarians like Scoot from thinking that because I had just toasted Ayn Rand with free booze, I want talk about Ayn Rand’s great hero, John Galt.
Scoot brushes his unreal coiffure nervously with his right hand to signal his intention to speak, and then said to Ponce (who had been pushed by the crowd back in to our group), but in a voice pitched to include as many people as possible, “Monsieur de Ponce-Nez, you have a European perspective. Who do you think is this generation’s John Galt?” Ponce ignores Scoot’s question, opting instead to return to the bar, uncharacteristically shoving a Congressional aid aside as he does so.
I should have drafted in his wake because the Milwaukee County Commissioner targets me next. “Shively, who do you think is this generation’s John Galt? Perhaps the Cocks?”
The word Cock initially startles me. In Republican circles, mention of male genitalia is normally confined to airport restrooms, the Page’s Lounge in the House of Representatives, and meetings of the more bawdy chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution. After a head-slapping moment I realize that Scoot is referring, not to penises – though he looks like a Japanese food-art version of one – but to the Cock brothers. You probably know them. They have businesses that make billions from disposable things like paper cups and ecosystems.
And who loom large in this story, as you shall see.
I look at Scoot meaningfully in an attempt to buy myself some time. I inhale and then neutrally say, “I think all Republicans should be asking ourselves – and each other – what we think of the Cocks.”
Scoot acknowledges my remark as if it has content worthy of a follow-up question.
And follow-up he does, “What about this group here? We are all luminaries of the conservative movement. Do you think any of us is this generation’s John Galt?”
My response is like confessing to a gay priest that I have decided to become a proctologist after my sexual experiences as an altar boy. Awkward, but full of potential paths forward. I gesture to the males in our group and say, “You men – and I mean you too Scoot when I talk about men – have talents that would be sorely missed if you, like John Galt, went on strike.”
“What strike?” two dozen curious onlookers ask simultaneously, including at least six reporters.
And there you have it. My careless words have started an Objectivist labor action.
1 Grover Cleveland, 22nd President of the United States