It came as billionaires and tech giants pledged massive sums of cash for Trump’s inauguration and signaled openness to working with the president-elect, Telnaes said.

On the 1976 campaign trail, Carter’s stock speech included this solemn declaration: “I want a government as full of compassion and decency and openness and honesty and brotherhood and love as are the American people.”

But you do detect an EU openness to starting negotiations on different economic sectors simultaneously.

“The Public Records Act exists in order to ensure that there’s openness and transparency, and when records are deleted purposefully, it undermines democracy and facilitates corruption.”

Democracy feeds on deliberation, on openness, on building community.