Ayn Rand ill guided and self opinionated?

Ayn Rand became popular in an era in which most Americans possessed a strongly anti-communist and anti-Soviet point-of-view. She provided a philosophy that vehemently argued that American capitalism was superior to Soviet communism. The reason for the popularity of her philosophy was clear. Americans were provided a philosophical basis for justifying capitalistic virtues of meritocratic economic self-determinism against the competing aims of egalitarian and need-based communism. Indeed, given the era in which she rose to prominence, would it not have been more surprising if she had not become popular?