I mean, that doesn't necessarily rule out that this is what it was trying to do? Ayn Rand was a proto-fascist and a pretty horrible human being, but she was also a good writer. She could write psychopaths in appealing ways. I don't care for her books, but like, I do get it. But that's the trick.

If you're trying to write Ayn Rand without Rand's genuine skill at making the hot psychopaths seem enthralling even as your intellectual brain says "this person is horrible," you don't even get the angler-fish lure of appeal in the core narrative.