Yes, Donald Trump May Be Paying "Protesters" to Attend His Rallies and Other Events

In preparation for my attending the Donald Trump rally on Friday here in Chicago, I have been doing a bit of research and intelligence work.

It would seem that some of my intuitions about Donald Trump the professional wrestler and showman are likely correct. I have repeatedly suggested in some of my recent radio and TV interviews, writings online here and elsewhere, and on The Chauncey DeVega Show, that Trump is paying protesters/agent provocateurs to attend his rallies.

It would seem that my instincts may be more correct than not.

Politico has a great piece on Donald Trump's security forces, managing of the news media (with the help of taxpayer funded Secret Service agents) and related matters.

It contains this important bit of information from the American Il Duce:

Trump — who often says that he likes protesters because they are the only thing that makes camera operators aim away from him and pan his large crowds — also repeated a promise to deploy his own protests at future rallies but did not finish explaining why. “Every once in a while I’m going to bring my own demonstrator just to create—,” he said and trailed off.

Trump is also using the following techniques to manage the optics at his events:

A spokeswoman for the campaign has not responded to requests for video that might validate the candidate’s claims. In addition to protesters, Trump’s campaign has gone to increasing lengths to control members of the press in recent days.

At Monday’s rally here and at Friday rally in New Orleans, press pens were constructed with barriers that created long avenues of exit and entry, forcing members of the media to enter and exit away from the floors of the venues.

In the past, the press pens at most rallies have opened directly on to the floors of venues, giving members of the media access to crowds. But Trump’s aides -- and more recently Secret Service agents – have long worked to prevent members of the media from exiting press pens to document protests and scuffles while Trump speaks.

The more frequent use of the restrictive press pen design — which had been deployed sporadically in past months — comes in the days after a Secret Service agent was caught on video choke-slamming a photographer for Time Magazine at a rally in Virginia late last month. The photographer, Christopher Morris, had been attempting to leave the pen to document a Black Lives Matter protest and shouted an obscenity at the agent before he was thrown to the ground.

It's all showbiz folks:

The introductory portion of Monday’s rally offered other new tactics. In the past, Trump has picked out spontaneous comments from his crowds — including “Ted Cruz is a pussy” — and repeated them from the stage. Here, the event's emcee proactively generated crowd fervor by asking audience members to shout out slogans for the crowd to chant. Suggestions included “Romney sucks” and two Clinton-themed chants, “blue dress” and “lock her up.”

And the so-called "liberal media" continues to present "Trumpmania" and his fevered political tent revivals as though they are organic events, when in reality said events are highly structured and gamed. Politics is professional wrestling--again--folks. The difference is that the news media, unlike Vince McMahon and company, are all still invested in presenting the show like it was a "shoot" as opposed to a "work".