Atlas Shrugged, the novel by Ayn Rand, appears across several episodes of The Bob Zadek Show as a recurring reference point rather than as a subject examined in its own right. Bob Zadek invokes the book to close one episode, to frame a warning about American medicine in another, and to open a third with its best-known question. The excerpts do not present a sustained discussion of the novel’s plot, characters or arguments; they show its phrases and its central conceit of “going Galt” doing work inside conversations about war, health care and economic regulation.
Straight Talk with Gary Johnson
In the closing minutes of an episode featuring Governor Gary Johnson, Bob Zadek thanks his guest and, in his closing seconds, reminds the audience that April 15th, besides being income tax day, is the grand opening of Atlas Shrugged in theaters around the country, adding that there will be more about it the following week Straight Talk with Gary Johnson (2011). The reference comes immediately after a caller named John argues that the United States has never had a Commander-in-Chief since World War II, that the Commander-in-Chief is called into actual service under Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution, and that the call comes from a declaration of war, which he describes as the only foreign policy created by both houses of Congress. John contends that because the country wants to invade and occupy, there has been no declaration of war, and that the resulting actions are police actions that are totally unconstitutional and unlawful. Gary Johnson responds that John could not have said it better. Bob then thanks Johnson, notes that Johnson is chairperson of ouramericainitiative.com, and recalls caller Clay’s hope that Johnson have a more active national role. The Atlas Shrugged mention is Bob’s, delivered as a scheduling note about the film’s opening rather than as commentary on the novel.
Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine?
The novel returns twice in a 2013 episode with Dr. Jeffrey Singer. In a segment on the rebirth of private practice, Bob Zadek describes a system that pre-government was a free market system, which government then destroyed by imposing payment rules, so that a doctor cannot be his or her own boss anymore; he compares the rebirth of private practice to new growth after a forest fire Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine? (2013). Dr. Singer says doctors are already quitting the whole system, refusing insurance and Medicare, and setting up private hospitals that take nothing, and he states that as part of the deal to get the Hospital Association to endorse Obamacare, the legislation prevents any new doctor-owned private hospitals from coming into existence. He explains that physician hospitals were competing too well with the big general hospitals and skimming off the better-paying patients, that existing physician hospitals are grandfathered, and that Medicare will not certify any new physician-owned hospitals. He predicts waiting lists for things that used to be routine, rising insurance premiums, and a gradually developing private system as more people who are able choose to go private.
Later in the same episode, discussing the Independent Payment Advisory Board, Bob Zadek says the coming collapse of the government-run system will be like Atlas Shrugged too, and that the doctors will simply go Galt. Dr. Singer replies that they are going Galt already, and adds that if the government tries to do something about the two-tiered system, as he says it tried to do in Canada, he doubts the United States Supreme Court would rule any differently than the Canadian Supreme Court, which he says held that you cannot prevent a person from using their own means to seek their own healthcare, nor penalize a person for providing it. Bob calls the IPAB far and away the scariest element of Obamacare, and Dr. Singer describes it as a board of 15 individuals appointed by the President who review what he calls the evidence and make recommendations to Medicare, with insurance companies following Medicare’s lead; he says they will ration care through payment, giving as examples a total hip operation in someone over 70 or dialysis for someone over 65, which he says is denied to people in England because the cost-benefit ratio to society is not thought worth it. Bob objects that it is worth a great deal to the person getting it. Dr. Singer says the IPAB is being challenged on constitutional grounds, that Congress cannot overrule its decision, and that by the year 2017 it cannot be dissolved; Bob adds that the statute says a future Congress cannot eliminate the board except during a three-month period in 2017, and that there is a question whether one Congress can limit what another Congress can do. Dr. Singer says it is not subject to judicial review or congressional review. Bob closes the segment by describing a doctor forced to follow the edicts of the IPAB and practice according to protocols and guidelines drawn up by committees in Washington, and says that is why more and more doctors are going Galt and retiring ahead of their plans.
Food Truck v. Farmville
A 2022 episode opens with the novel’s most famous line. Bob Zadek tells listeners that anybody who has read or knows about Atlas Shrugged, or Ayn Rand’s work in general, will remember and often make reference to that iconic line from Atlas Shrugged: “Who is John Galt?” He tells anyone who does not know who John Galt is to dust off their Atlas Shrugged, read it — calling it a quick, easy 1,100-page read — and learn who John Galt actually is Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). He then says the morning’s question is more modest than the weighty one, “Who is John Galt?”, and that the show will instead ask and answer: Who is Mark Shirley, and why do you care? The episode concerns Jessica Thompson of the Pacific Legal Foundation and the case of Mark Shirley, a North Carolina food truck owner fighting protectionist regulations in the town of Farmville, along with the competitor’s veto, protections for economic liberty in the North Carolina Constitution, certificate of need laws and occupational licensing. The novel’s question serves as the show’s opening frame before the discussion turns to the case.
Across episodes
The excerpts show Atlas Shrugged invoked in three episodes spanning 2011 to 2022, but they do not show the same question argued across them: the 2011 mention is a scheduling note about the film’s opening, the 2013 mentions supply the “going Galt” conceit for a discussion of medicine, and the 2022 mention is an opening rhetorical frame. The treatment does not develop between the earlier and later episodes; the novel remains a shared reference point rather than a topic the guests debate.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts contain no discussion of the novel’s plot, its characters beyond John Galt, its publication history, or its reception. They do not state who directed or starred in the film mentioned in 2011, nor what became of it. No guest offers a sustained reading of Rand’s argument, and the excerpts do not say whether any episode was devoted to the book itself.