I have known a good share of Rand’s inner circle and attended her funeral. I was particularly friends with two of my favorite people: Barbara Branden and Nathaniel Branden. Barbara was one of my closest friends, for some 35 years. I say this to establish some credentials. I will say 99% of the time I hear Republicans invoke Rand and completely misstate her views. Her criticism of conservatives was a consistent theme from the 40s until her death. In fact, she was one of the first to warn about turning politics into an arm of religion, which she did in letters to various people in the 40s while working at one of the film studios in Hollywood.

Conservatives know Rand about as well as they actually know the Bible—which is close to NOT AT ALL. I’ve had them assert she was a Christian when she was an atheist; they invoked her “anti-immigration” stand when she was publicly pro-immigration. Some have insisted she was anti-abortion when she refused to support any political candidate who was against choice and she was supporting reproductive choice before Roe V. Wade was decided. While she was no fan of erotica she wrote about the importance of free speech and how it covered sexual material as well.

In 1989 I organized a conference and Barbara was one of the speakers and I introduced her talk on defending Rand, the point I made then is still valid: the two groups Rand most needed defending from were alleged fans who never read her and critics were second. In summary 99% of what I hear said about Ayn is inaccurate or exaggerated and her “fans” are among the worst. I’ve learned many of the conservatives who invoke her have never read anything she wrote in their lives.