I think you're a little too hung up on the audience metaphor.

> Perhaps confusing battles between "freshwater" Chicago macro economists and Ivy league "Saltwater" theorists could be best understood as happening within a single "orthodox promotion" given that both groups suffered no injury from failing (equally) to predict the recent financial crisis.

The Kayfabe element is that two "competing" schools of thought are primarily concerned with protecting the shared status of "orthodox" economics over outside theories.