While the government continues to grow, Rand's readership does not abate. Kelley says this isn't a contradiction. Of course, this polarization leads to strange bedfellows. A peculiar facet of Washington's conservative establishment is the number of people who claim to embrace both the Bible and Atlas Shrugged. I see really flat contradictions in the message of the Bible and the message of Atlas Shrugged.
People do find it easy to live with contradictions.
It was bad for libertarians because it exacerbated all the worst tenets of libertarianism. Rand's negative influence ended with her death, he says, and her influence now is more positive. At the same time, a poll of Liberty subscribers and Libertarian Party members shows a decrease in libertarian acceptance of her political philosophy. Bradford says this is evidence that what he calls the moralistic approach to capitalism, a belief that capitalism exemplifies natural rights and morality, a dictum favored by Rand and economist Murray Rothbard, is losing ground to a consequentialist approach in which capitalism is regarded as the most practical, efficient and productive system, exemplified by Milton Friedman and Mises. But this hasn't affected her popular appeal to budding libertarians and individualists.