Arms industry cash goes to election deniers

Speaking Security Newsletter | Note n°178 | 3 November 2022

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Situation

The five largest weapons companies gave nearly $2 million to the Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results. The analysis (published yesterday) is based on Federal Election Commission data through August of the 2022 election cycle. The final amount given to these candidates will likely be much higher than $2 million once the FEC releases data for September and October.

Analysis

The subtext of my recent article in Jacobin is that military budgets don’t just buy weapons—they buy a way of life, too: The portion of arms industry profits recycled back into the political system have significant and very undesirable political effects. Helping keep election deniers in office is one of them.

I’m thinking back to this tweet I saw months ago. I think Jackson’s observation applies here as well.

Van Jackson @WonkVJ

War tends to benefit reactionary forces in society. Whatever its merits in a given situation, we should be clear-eyed about that reality

Adam Tooze @adam_tooze

"The five western oil supermajors — Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP and TotalEnergies — are together on track to generate well over $50bn in profits in the three months to the end of June." https://t.co/WPh8fOcDLR https://t.co/YK0DcuNFlZ

I’m also thinking back to Biden’s “arsenal of democracy” comment he made during a speech at a Lockheed-Raytheon facility:

President Biden @POTUS

During World War II, the United States was known as the arsenal of democracy. We built the weapons and the equipment that helped defend freedom and sovereignty in Europe. That’s true again today.

Ownership

This episode won’t get much traction among elected Democrats, or at least the powerful ones, because they’re funded by the same companies. The top contractors know this, and partly explains why they’re brazenly donating so much to election deniers. 

It should agitate the public plenty, though, because they (we) are the ones paying for it: Profits at the top military contractors are effectively subsidized by public funds:

-Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)

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