Presidential Debates: Where Millionaires Ask Other Millionaires What's Best for the Middle Class

For all the talk by candidates and the media about what’s best for the middle class, a disheartening—albeit unsurprising—aspect of our democracy was on full display Monday night at the first presidential debate. Namely, while theoretical conversations during election season always focus on which policies and platforms will most benefit the hardworking, middle-income Americans who (as Nancy Pelosi once said) are “the bedrock of our prosperity and the backbone of our democracy,” in practice, these conversations end up being just a bunch of rich people talking to each other about how their plans benefit less-rich people.

As Counterpunch notes, the combined net worth of both major party presidential candidates is $3.11 billion, with Trump’s (alleged) net worth hovering around $3 billion and Clinton's approximately $110 million. The annual incomes of the debate moderators for 2016 presidential debate are, per Counterpunch: “Matt Lauer $25 million, Lester Holt $5 million, Anderson Cooper $10 million (net worth $100 million), Martha Raddatz $1 million (net worth $8 million), Chris Wallace $1.5 million.”

Critiques of the presidential debate format range from questions over whether moderators should fact-check the candidates (yes) to whether the Commission on Presidential Debates should exert its enormous power and restrict participation by third-party candidates (no). But another fair question to ask of the debates, and of the media in general, is, when those with the most access to hugely wealthy candidates are themselves hugely wealthy, who’s really looking out for the middle class? As for the poor, their problems don't even get a passing reference. Poverty has been pretty much off the radar completely during this presidential campaign.

A totally condensed and terribly incomplete overview of social classes in the United States breaks them into three overly broad parts: The working class, which constitutes around one-fifth of American society and is comprised mainly of low-level retail and service workers, as well as the unemployed. Then there’s the middle class, which is vaguely defined and typically subdivided into upper-middle, middle-middle, and lower-middle. Finally, there’s the upper class, divided (per sociologist Dennis Gilbert) into two groups: those with a net worth of $1 million or more, and those with an annual income over $9.5 million.

Using these parameters—which vary depending on who you speak to but remain relatively constant in terms of structure—it’s easy to see where the debate moderators fall. The talking heads hand-selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates represent not the working-, middle- or even the upper-middle-class. They’re upper-class media power elite, provided with unfettered access to the candidates on any given Tuesday—and they’re the ones we count on to ask the tough questions on behalf of an audience of 85 million people.

Maybe that’s why questions about money in politics were notably absent Monday night, despite campaign finance reform landing among the top-five concerns of voters across the political spectrum. “Cash and power got the good seats,” Michael Winship wrote in his debate roundup:

“…Absolutely no mention of the ruinous influence of money in politics, which in retrospect made it a bit jarring that when Bill and Chelsea Clinton entered the debate auditorium they sat next to Vernon Jordan, a close family friend and adviser, certainly, but also senior counsel at Akin Gump, the biggest and most profitable lobbyist in Washington, prime peddlers of influence and privilege on Capitol Hill.

Billionaires Sheldon Adelson (Trump supporter and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani literally kissed the ring of Adelson’s wife), Mark Cuban and a lot of other high rollers were in the room, too.”

When these platforms for important policy debates morph into de facto elbow-rubbing parties for the media and powerful politicians, it’s difficult to see the benefit for everyday working- and middle-class Americans. We’ll wait to see if a town hall format at the next debate returns a modicum of power to the typical voter and helps illuminate which issues are important to the American middle class.