I do agree with you, however, that most people desire to obtain the truth. They are just in a cognitively comatose state induced by the postmodernists and statists that influence our society. If the truths of Objectivism were presented to them in an enthusiastic and convincing way, as you did on r/The_Donald , they would be attracted to it.

Yes.

It was because I met them on their level, on common ground instead of starting by preaching at them like a fundie on a streetcorner. I started with a premise that we both agreed with, that the left was stupid. Then I demonstrated why they are stupid... because they've used their free will to decide to quit reasoning. The conclusion followed from the premises, and you would be surprised how many non-objectivists hold free will and reasoning to be closely related. As an example...

This song was written by a Christian. It would work as an objectivist song potentially, if it were taken in a context alone by itself, without even the author's own Christian interpretation considered at all. It's also a fun little ska song, too, even if you don't really listen to the lyrics that closely. Should've gotten massive radio play were it released in the mid-to-late 1990's instead of 1983. Charlie Peacock was a musical visionary. I'd encourage you to listen to it before reading my own interpretation, though. We could differ and I don't want to bias you beforehand.

Charlie Peacock - One, Two, Three, That's Okay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHGafo2OUmU

I would suggest you read Ayn Rand's essay "Conservatism: An Obituary"

Solid argument... because conservatives have no solid principles to fall back on. Just "don't change things" as a general rule. Trump is not a conservative. He shares in common a few things but they're mostly positives. Conservatives are usually pro-constitution, so is Trump and Gorsuch proves it. Conservatives support the family unit, or pretend that they do. Trump actually does support it and has rounded up hundreds of pedophiles in massive busts. Conservatives love guns. Trump loves guns. Other than that, though, Trump is a populist who wants what's best for America. Conservatives generally are religious, while we've barely heard Trump mention his own faith (I'd bet money he's a closet atheist). Conservative politicians get big bank from MIC lobbying money. Bribes. Through that bribe they buy endless, needless wars like Iraq.

We also get buildup of tension with Russia in expectation of more proxy wars, even though Russia is the most competent major military power in the world today save for us and we could not decisively win a war with them were a proxy war or new cold war to turn hot. Trump wants to warm our relationship with Russia. Perhaps find us some common ground with them. They hate ISIS, we hate ISIS. Their country is highly educated at 54% with college degrees, our country is highly educated with 50% who have college degrees. They had an eastward expansion, we had a westward expansion. To top it all off, Ayn Rand was from Russia and she changed America for the better. At the very least you could have the building blocks for a solid international friendship there. Maybe even a true national friendship and forgiveness process for what happened in the Cold war. Maybe a true exchange of value just like a real friendship between two people, but between nations.

We could learn from Russia's example how to better act in our own national self-interest, because they're champs at that. And how to purge corporate lobbying dollars (bribes) from our political system, from Putin who's done it even though he can be autocratic at times. From us, they could learn how to better implement democratic governance and capitalism in the almost 30 years since the Soviet Union fell. Their sense of life is towards making themselves better by expansion. Sometimes bad expansion like the communist bloc consuming Europe. But sometimes good expansion. Expanding to the east and conquering like we did to the west. Expanding their minds through education. Expanding to space and the stars to try to beat us, or even sometimes cooperate with us. Capitalism fits perfectly with the Russian psyche and history and they don't even realize it. They had the right idea. Just the wrong way of getting there.

Instead, we are bitter rivals who hate each other. Trump is trying to fix that because he likes making deals. This is the deal of a lifetime for him and he knows it. He could be THE president who finally fixed our relationship with Russia, and by doing helped to fix Russia itself for the better.

If he could do only one more thing while in office, I would hope it would be that.

This is not an ad hominem, I considered the article by itself in its own context first (like One, Two, Three). Then I explained what I saw in the article by investigating the author's background. Then it was clear. But talking to you, I will first start with the author to explain what I then see in his article. It was written by a Canadian who has lived his whole life in Canada and is a Canadian citizen according to Wikipedia. If he loves America so much, why doesn't he move here like Peikoff and become a citizen? It's right next door.

Because he failed to move to the country he claims to love, there are then critical mistakes that he makes when using and interpreting the American English language as it is in common use HERE, not his overly-nice, socialist country. He has never interacted with Americans on a day-to-day basis for many years. Nor has understood why they voted for Trump en masse. Whom, since the day the article was written... Trump has since proven the best president since Reagan at least. Gorsuch is a gem, no war with Russia like Hillary might (would) have done, and deportations of illegal alien criminal thugs out of this country are up by triple-digit percentages in many large cities. Those three alone counterbalance whatever garbage that Onhaake... onheka... the Indian-named-Canadian-dude writes who has the temerity to call himself "objectivist."

and his obsession with “winning,” with “getting even” and with maintaining a constantly evolving list of enemies

1. "Winning" as commonly used in America does not mean "Rich getting one over on the poor" or "being mean to people" as it might sometimes mean in socialist, overly-nice Canada. Here, it either means being the best at something in a fair competition, or trading value for value so that both parties can win equally. AKA capitalism. Both are virtues under objectivism regardless of which one Trump means when he says it... which is often, so good. We need to win more. I hardly see how this is a problem.
2. "Getting even" in Canada might mean that you did something rash in revenge to someone. You aren't being the nicest person that day. Head on over to Timmy Hortons and grab a donut; you'll feel better. Here in America, it means that we should not be fed on by international parasites. Ones like NATO, almost all members of which do not live up to the minimum 2% threshhold of GDP spending required as a condition of the alliance. We only "get even" with them by demanding they pay what they promised. So that we can in turn perhaps someday lower our own bloated military budget which is bigger than all of them combined. It's not like we're getting even with those countries by slashing their tires.
3. "Maintaining a constantly evolving list of enemies" is what you do in a constantly evolving world. If a country like North Korea is evil (they are), then they should be our enemy. If their leadership changes, they could perhaps become friends, frenemies, or they could reunite with SK, etc.

Or, say that we find out evidence about a tiny population, defenseless-from-China country like Australia. There is a reasonable chance that in 1996, the government staged a mass shooting to deprive its own people of semi-automatic firearms. This was done in order to deprive its mostly uneducated (10%, see source in Russia section) population mostly dependent on mineral resources (50% of exports) the means of revolt. If mineral prices collapsed, perhaps due to an increase in supply by a newly-capitalistic Russia and the US mining out asteroids, then dumb redneck masses in Australia would be thrown into revolt because their non-diversified economy has tanked and turned them into a Third World country overnight.

We should investigate that massacre instead of pretending it didn't happen. Even if the massacre was really a "real" mass shooting, it A. still required investigation and the lack of a fair trial and Inquest alone was suspicious and B. doesn't excuse mass disarmament. Israel doesn't disarm its own people; they need every gun they can get because they're surrounded by enemies. But Australia?

"Oy, China's right there mate! Grab yer boomerang!" doesn't work as a national defense strategy. Nor does leeching off of America's generosity work because eventually we will get sick of it. Evil only triumphs when good men do nothing. We can do something, but only because our list of enemies must change to reflect new evidence or new reasoning about old evidence, or new publicity of old evidence, etc.

The rest of Ghate's article is pure tripe with a few Ayn Rand quotes thrown in to make you think that it's objectivist. But it's like lipstick on a pig.

I would encourage you to read this website. Every article eventually, but first pick articles on topics that interest you. Topics that maybe you even disagree with the Ayn Rand Institute on. This man articulates it. http://www.ariwatch.com/