It’s not just political kayfabe. There’s kayfabe, and then there’s what Vince really pioneered, which is neokayfabe, a term I made up.
After Vince made it a part of public record that wrestling was fake, that led to sort of the end of the illusion that wrestling was a legitimate, unplanned competition in the sporting realm.
Neokayfabe is when you operate not on the assumption of telling the audience, “Hey, everything you’re about to see is real.” You start by giving them the assumption, “Hey, everything you’re about to see is fake — except the parts that you think are real.”
It’s Trumpism. You’re left to kind of choose your own reality. So whether you are just taking it in and not trying to sort out what’s real, or whether you’re obsessively trying to sort it into true and false, you’re paying attention, and that’s all that matters.