There was a strange moment last month when Donald Trump, briefly departing from his usual conspiracy-mongering and idiocy, stumbled on an argument grounded in actual reality. The leaders of the Pentagon, Trump fumed, “want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”

Trump has increased military spending during his tenure and remains a blatant hypocrite, but his words weren’t exactly wrong. Between the usual scolding from pundits and the displeased murmurs of the national security state, there was Trump uttering a truth: wars make a lot of people a lot of money.

Since President Eisenhower warned of the growing military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell address, various politicians, academics, and activists have lamented its enormity. Eisenhower’s warning went unheeded. What he witnessed six decades ago exists in a far more hegemonic form today, quietly governing many facets of American life.