Not sure what you mean ...

If you're talking about guys like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld .. they weren't exactly protesters or activists; they were dodgers who used their connections to avoid being sent to Vietnam to fight. They were actually connected to Nixon in one way or another and Bush Sr. was right in the thick of it with Nixon as well.

Then if you go back even further, it appears that Nixon was involved with the assassination of JFK and that Bush Sr. was perhaps one of the field hands who set it up.

Before JFK was General Eisenhower who warned the American people of the threat of the military industrial complex. He knew; he was involved with that complex.

WW2 grew this complex. There were aircraft companies who virtually came out of near bankruptcy into highly profitable corporations because of war contracts given to them by the U.S. government. After the war, these companies suddenly lost their revenue and so, to keep self-perpetuating, they needed wars. (Was there ever a time after WW2 til now ... that the U.S. was NOT involved in some kind of foreign war or conflict?

Look at the amount of equipment that was simply abandoned in Alaska, (WW2) ... in Vietnam ... in the Gulf war ... because it was too "costly" to bring it back home.

Yes, the military industrial complex is the industrial version of the junk market from China. It's all about consumerism and making profit from that.

The modern Presidents are just stooges for that industrial system to keep it alive, protected and profitable.

-Vince