Defense Production Quotes
“Arsenal of Democracy” is the famous FDR phrase whereby America was able to provide weapons for the other democracies to fight Fascism. At the time, the United States had the greatest manufacturing capability of the world. When Gingrich made this quotation, much manufacturing that had been done in America had moved offshore. However, one area that did not move offshore was military weapons manufacturing where the United States manufacturing capability was thriving but America was the largest arms manufacturer in the world and exported much of its weapons. This quotation is an example of a political technique called “conflation.” Gingrich took an area where there was legitimate concern about the nation’s loss of manufacturing and implied that the problem was affecting our military and defense capability as well which was not do at all. However, while most Americans knew of the manufacturing job loss, they did not know that the defense manufacturing was the strongest in the world. So they became even more alarmed at the problem of general manufacturing loss.
