The Illusion of ‘Radical Transparency’ - The Atlantic
One of the curiosities of Donald Trump’s enduring (if perhaps weakening) grip on his supporters is how they praise him as someone who “tells it like it is.” Trump’s gatekeepers have similarly declared this to be “the most transparent administration in history,” pointing to, among other things, Trump’s willingness to open his sycophantic Cabinet meetings to live media coverage as proof that nothing is being obscured. The irony of this, of course, is that Trump has been caught in more obvious lies than any president in history. Yet by making himself so ubiquitous, Trump breeds an illusion of openness. To him, a president’s ultimate power rests in his ability to always be in people’s faces—to become inescapable, if not honestly examined; to impose his own self-serving version of reality whenever he pleases, no matter how outlandish. I kept thinking about this as I watched You Can See Everything, the blockbuster documentary that has become a source of cultural fascination since it started