Despite many instances of back and forth political skirmishes between candidates during this past weekend’s GOP debate in New Hampshire, perhaps the single most important moment was when Donald Trump ripped back the curtain to expose the process by which the Establishment has long attempted to control the audience participation that takes place in high-stakes political debate forums.
ABOVE: Trump was not the only one with concerns over a seeming over-representation of pro Jeb Bush supporters in the audience, though he was the only one to indicate it during the debate itself.
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The single greatest determinant of who gets into the debate hall of any given debate is the state political party machine in which that debate takes place – more commonly known as the “party bosses.”
The direct link to this Establishment apparatus then is the donor and special interests class, business interests, and from there the host venue site and related media covering the event.
Since the GOP debates began (though this type of “stacking” takes place at debates for both political parties and you will often see the very same donors and lobbyists showing up at both party debates) some have wondered why Jeb Bush and most recently Jeb Bush and John Kasich, appeared to be getting louder segments of applause than some of the other candidates despite making statements that were often rambling, mundane, and clearly rehearsed.
The answer is simple – money, influence, and long-standing party loyalties that often date back decades.
Even the tickets given to the host site, such as a university, often find their way into the hands of the donor and/or lobbyist class who purchase those tickets (at marked up prices) from students and faculty. The 2016 election cycle is not the first time this has happened, but it is perhaps the first time it has been so noticeable given the GOP is currently engaged in a war between its chosen Establishment candidates and the insurgent campaigns of candidates like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson.
The Bush campaign in particularly, with connections that date back decades with state and local party bosses, has been quite willing to make certain its supporters are well represented well beyond the twenty or so tickets each campaign is specifically given. In a debate hall where say, a total of 1000 are in attendance, if Jeb Bush has two or three hundred supporters scattered throughout the venue, it makes a noticeable difference in audience reaction than say a Ted Cruz or Donald Trump who has no more than twenty or thirty direct supporters attending the debate.
Add to that the media and business interests (the Chamber of Commerce alone is said to lock up up to 20% of the total tickets for any given debate) and the audience leanings becomes even more lopsided. If some candidates are taking a particular strong stance on closing the border and enforcing immigration laws, the Chamber of Commerce attendees already know to boo and hiss at the appropriate time, while clapping for the candidate(s) they feel represent policies more conducive to their vision of ongoing cheap immigrant labor.
As the candidates go from one debate venue to the next they start to see the very same faces as last time, those members of the lobbyist and donor class who continue to try influence the nomination outcome but more importantly, protect whatever interests their presence at those debates represent.
If you are a self-funded candidate like Donald Trump, or a non-conventional, insurgent campaign like Ted Cruz or Ben Carson, your are often looking out at an audience in which the majority of the eyes staring back at you have no intention of allowing you to win the party’s nomination.
In 1980 one GOP candidate who himself was outside the then Republican/D.C. mainstream, went to New Hampshire and in an even more dramatic version that Donald Trump did this past Saturday, expose to the all voters how the party bosses and their affiliated special interests attempt to rig the proceedings. It should be noted that following this now famous exchange, both political parties worked to ensure the audience would never again be dominated by “regular” voters whose presence was too unpredictable in securing a pre-determined outcome:
And here by comparison is Mr. Trump’s version, though the big difference in 2016 vs 1980, is that the debate audience of today has far fewer non-special interest figures making up its numbers than it did in 1980:
What Donald Trump did was speak publicly of a concern some of the other candidates had quietly been murmuring about in private for weeks, namely the odd spectacle of seeing so many in the debate audience applauding so loudly for a candidate like Jeb Bush who is consistently polling in the single digits. The other candidates knew what was going on, but Donald Trump actually came out and said it before a live national television audience.
In doing so, Trump pulled back the political curtain just a bit – an act which both the Republican and Democrat parties see as a violation of their long-standing deception.
The New York businessman already had many enemies within the Establishment who hoped to see his campaign destroyed. By speaking out, some of them quite likely now want to see him destroyed as well.
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