The top defense contractors in the United States have a long history of supporting Republican candidates during the presidential election season. During the 2012 election cycle, defense contractors gave more financial donations to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney than they did to current President Barack Obama. Romney received 1.4 million dollars in donations from defense PACs and industry employees, while Obama received 1.2 million dollars from the same types of donors.
This election cycle, which counts Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as the candidates, sees defense contractors and individual employees donating more to Clinton and the Democratic Party. This is a stark contrast to previous presidential races and furthers the point that this is not your normal election.
Minorities across the country recognize that Trump’s divisive language and hate-filled speech is not normal for a presidential candidate. Trump’s fake university and his refusal to pay his Atlantic City workers has everyone wondering how a con man was able to make it to the top of a major political party.
While these concerns represent the majority of Americans supporting Clinton and the Democratic ticket, defense contractors and industry employees have their own reasons for deciding against supporting Donald Trump. Two reasons came up over and over again when defense workers were questioned about their support for Hillary Clinton. The first being that Donald Trump is an unknown variable who is extremely unreliable. The second being that Hillary Clinton has a history of understanding and supporting the needs of the defense community.
Defense industry consultant Loren Thompson, when asked about Donald Trump, was quoted saying:
“In the case of Trump vs. Clinton, defense executives see the same thing in Trump that people in other industries and the media see, which is that he’s a totally unknown quantity, and that’s scary.”
She also spoke about Clinton’s history with the defense industry. She said:
“All the people I know in the industry who are actively involved in the campaigns are on the Clinton side. Clinton has been in public life for decades, her priorities are well understood, and many senior executives in the defense industry know her personally.”
Thompson’s views, and the views of many of her colleagues, are the reason why the Clinton campaign has a five-to-one advantage over the Trump campaign based on contributions from employees of the 25 major defense contractors. Clinton has received 273,000 dollars from industry employees, while Trump has received only 55,000 dollars from similar individuals. This financial data is based on employees who have donated more than 200 dollars to either campaign.
It appears many people who thought that Clinton was a boring, wonky choice for the presidency have finally decided to come around. Everyone is starting to realize that experience and intelligence are actually important qualities for a president to have.
The defense industry has known this all along, and their financial contributions reflect this fact. It’s nice that the rest of the country is starting to realize this as well.
Here is a video of Hillary Clinton outlining her foreign policy positions and showing why Donald Trump is unfit to operate within the global political system:
Featured image via YouTube video.
